Op-ed: Gays and Mormons, Do Unto Others
(TW: ableist language)
Gay Mormon Mitch Mayne says a website about his faith’s “craziest beliefs” offers distortions and half-truths, much like the religious right’s view of LGBT people.
I think it’s no secret that I’m an openly gay, active Latter-day Saint. In August of last year, I was called to serve as executive secretary in the bishopric of the Bay Ward in San Francisco — as an openly gay man. Yes, I have been in a monogamous, committed relationship with someone of the same gender. Yes, I was deemed worthy to hold this post and sustained in the identical fashion any heterosexual man would be. No, I have not committed to a life of celibacy, nor have I denounced my sexual orientation. I won’t apologize to the Mormon community for being gay — but I won’t apologize to the gay community for being Mormon either.
A week ago someone sent me a link to Fred Karger’s site The Top 10 Craziest Mormon Beliefs. At first I thought it was a joke (and frankly, still kind of do). Anyone, anywhere (Mormon or not) can submit “factual Mormon doctrine” to the site, so really there’s little legitimate fact to be found. It kind of reminds me of the urban myth that was circulating a few years back — about the man who woke up in a bathtub full of ice, only to discover his kidneys had been removed for sale on the black market.
Like the kidney story, most of the content on The Top 10 Craziest Mormon Beliefs is fringe belief stretched to the point of complete urban legend. The content isn’t really worth a point-counterpoint debate since, quite frankly, there’s such little substance.
But there is something here that is worth addressing, and that is the principle behind why such a site exists in the first place — especially given the remarkably similar histories of persecution shared by the gay and Mormon communities.
Click the link above to read the full article.
LGBT Mormons
11/06/2011
LGBT MORMONS GET TOGETHER
As you read this, “hundreds of gay Mormons, their families and friends” are gathered in Salt Lake City, UT, to talk about sexuality at a conference called “Circling The Wagons.” According to The Salt Lake Tribune:
The purpose of the…
Source: towleroad.com
HRC to descend on Salt Lake City
National gay rights activists tell The Associated Press they will descend on Salt Lake City’s Mormon church headquarters to deliver more than 100,000 letters asking a senior church leader to recant recent anti-gay statements.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights organization, this week called for Boyd K. Packer to correct statements that homosexuality is unnatural and can be overcome.
Packer is president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His remarks came Sunday during a church conference.
HRC officials say Packer’s statements are factually inaccurate. The group asked it members to write to Packer.
HRC officials say they’ll deliver the letters to church headquarters on Tuesday.
Mormon Prop 8 documentary opens today
Before researching a documentary on something else entirely, Reed Cowan had no idea how influential the Mormon Church was in the Prop 8 elections.
But while speaking to homeless teens in Salt Lake City, he learned that most of them had been kicked out of their homes for being gay because the Church of Latter Day Saints preached to their families that homosexuality was wrong.
And when Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, was voted into law, Cowan realized that the church was not only affecting the lives of the thousands of homeless youth in Utah, but also millions of voters in California.
