Not as boring as you think! This is a poignant story of coming to terms with the truth you were taught and the truth you know inside. I suppose all of us good little gay boys who grew up in a homophobic church (and they all were, in my day) has a story of the Love That Could Not Be like this one. And of finally daring to step outside the sacred circle - and finding not judgment, but peace.
A YouTube commenter has kindly supplied the rest of the story from the New York Times (behind a paywall):
Though Tom left Gianni in Italy, their relationship continued in various forms over the years. Gianni still lives in Pescara, where he is an artist and cares for his elderly mother. Tom returned to the United States, where he remained closeted but eventually left the Mormon Church. (His marriage to a Mormon woman ended in divorce, after which he came out.) Tom now lives in Salt Lake City with his partner. Although their romance has ended, he and Gianni still consider themselves deeply connected and close friends.
Actually, now an ex-bishop. And he got it via, of all things, reruns of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Excerpt from his essay in this week's Advocate:
For me it was much more than watching five gay men help get straight guys’ act together in grooming, home decor, fashion, culture, and cuisine. It began to create a bond for me to these men. They had a certain synergy that kept me wanting to watch more. I liked them as people. I saw them as individuals expressing their God-given talents and trying to make people’s lives and the world a little bit better. As Carson Kressley, the show’s fashion guru, would often say, it’s not a makeover show, it’s a “make better” show.
I would watch the show and imagine what it would be like for them to be in a Mormon bishop’s home, which is probably considered the heart of enemy territory by some in the gay community since Proposition 8. There was something about the spirit of these men that seemed to break barriers of orientation, politics, and even religion. Perhaps like every other fan, I considered them to be more familiar than reality would dictate. Then something that Carson said in his cheeky manner struck me like a thunderbolt. He said, “We are very pro traditional marriage.” Those words echoed in my mind for months and months. It seemed to disrupt and challenge a deeply held belief that the traditional family was under attack by a so called “gay agenda.”
That belief was dismantled at that moment and I realized that these good men had no desire to hurt me, my marriage, or my family. On the contrary, if they were in my home, I could only see them supporting me, my traditional marriage, and my family.
Watch as Kloosterman apologizes for the church's homophobia - not speaking on behalf of the church, mind, but what seems to be a very sincere, very aware personal statement:
P.S. - So you mean, like, straight guys really do watch that show? Seriously??!
You have to watch this terrific video by Steve, who tells it like it is:
And this one by Chad, who was excommunicated for publishing the Men on a Mission calendar. Then a week after graduation, Brigham Young University actually revoked his college degree.
It's a very stressful time in my life right now; one of those bottleneck moments when everything seems to be piling on top of you, and more every day. And then Murphy's Law kicks in, and all your efforts to dig your way out of the pile seem futile. So you whittle away at what little you can accomplish and wait for things to ease up, as they always do. Eventually.
So I haven't been paying as much attention to the news lately as I usually do, but last week's groundbreaking decision by the LDS church - which led the fight for Prop 8 last year in California - to support a gay-rights ordinance in Salt Lake City is worthy of mention. The New York Times:
The Mormon Church has been a target of vituperation by some gay rights groups because of its active opposition to same-sex marriage. But on Wednesday, the church was being praised by gay rights activists in Salt Lake City, citadel of the Mormon world, for its open support of a local ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment. . . .
The ordinance, which passed unanimously Tuesday night, made Salt Lake the first city in Utah to offer such protections. While the measure probably had majority backing on the seven-member City Council anyway, the church’s support was seen by gay activists as a thunderclap that would resonate across the state and in the overwhelmingly Mormon legislature, where even subtle shifts in church positions on social issues can swing votes and sentiments.
“It’s the most progressive and inclusive statement that the church has made on these issues,” said Will Carlson, the manager of public policy at Equality Utah, the state’s largest gay rights group. “What they’ve said here is huge, in protecting residents in other municipalities, and statewide.”
It is possible to be cynical or begrudging in reacting to the LDS Church's unprecedented public decision to support civic protections against discrimination in employment and housing with respect to homosexuals in Salt Lake City. I think that is a temptation to be resisted. . . .
What the LDS church has done in Utah is an immensely important and positive step and places the Mormon church in a far more positive and pro-gay position than any other religious group broadly allied with the Christianist right. They have made a distinction - and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction - between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting - with total justification - on the integrity of one's own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution's right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions. . . .
For this degree of respect - even if it is not fully what I want or what gays truly deserve - we should reciprocate with respect as well. This is a moment of genuine dialogue and civil compromise. And it was accomplished in Salt Lake City among gay and straight Mormons and gay and straight non-Mormons in a way that other Christians in other places have been unable to replicate.
Leadership comes in the unlikeliest places. And when it does, we should thank God and be glad.
Is the beginning of a thaw in the anti-gay attitudes of the religious right, or just a CYA after all the heavy flak the Mormons caught for their Prop 8 support - what do you say?
- A minority community is upset with the Mormon church. - The Mormon Church "severely opposes" one certain kind of marriage. - The Mormon church fails to see why people are upset with them. - Despite their clearly unfair actions, the Mormon church denies any bias
That is the simplified story of 2008's gay-Mormon debate. As you will see from this AP report, these exact same bullet points were also in play way back in 1969 (click to enlarge):
I'm in favor of religious tolerance and a decent respect for others' beliefs. But frankly, the Mormon history of blatant, "divinely authorized" racism makes me want to throw up. Here's a link to the very well-documented Wikipedia article on "Blacks and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" for those of you who want to get the scoop on this. It ought to be required reading at this time of Prop 8 protests.
I also realize the parallels that could be made with other Christian churches on the issue of civil rights, slavery, and other racial beliefs like the Curse of Cain and the Curse of Ham, which I remember hearing freely and zealously preached as the God-given justification for the separation of the races - and the subjugation of the black race, in particular - during my childhood in the segregated South. It's God's will!
Which is why I am so sick of hearing, "The Bible says . . . ". So much of that Bible talk is just the wish-fulfillment of straight white men holding on to power and domination - and, letthe truth be said, of straight white women who like it that way. Men talking, not God. See Richard Rodriguez' comments on the "male God of the desert religions" in an earlier post here.
The Mormon leadership got zapped by a revelation direct from God himself on June 1, 1978, saying blacks were just OK with Him. How nice of God to phone in like that. I wonder when the LDS Church will get another convenient "revelation," this time about the gays, hmm?
The NYT published this editorial yesterday on the setbacks to gay rights:
Amid the soaring oratory about the presidential election, it was Barack Obama who put it best late Tuesday night. “That’s the genius of America, that America can change,” he said. “Our union can be perfected.”
But as Mr. Obama’s victory showed, the path to change is arduous. Even as the nation shattered one barrier of intolerance, we were disappointed that voters in four states chose to reinforce another. Ballot measures were approved in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida and California that discriminate against couples of the same sex. . . .
We wish that Tuesday’s vote of 52 percent to 48 percent had gone the other way. But when those numbers are compared with the 61 percent to 39 percent result in 2000, when Californians approved the law that was overturned by their Supreme Court, it is evident that voters have grown more comfortable with arriage equality.
Progress is evident, too, in the fact that since 2000, the California Legislature has twice passed a measure to let gay couples marry — only to be vetoed by the Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. To his credit, he opposed Proposition 8. We suspect that if California holds another referendum on the issue down the road, it will yield a different result.
Oh yeah, you betcha it will. If we do the hard work of educating, informing, and campaigning for it. You gotta work for what you want; good things never come without effort.
Joe.My.God. suggests another March on Washington as a good way to channel the energy and enthusiasm of the younger generation of LGBT folks. Sounds great to me.
After Karen Ocamb's report, people called in from across the country and several decided they were going to go to their local Mormon temple or headquarters and protest. I think it is a terrific idea. We should launch protests wherever there are temples, and also in smaller areas, go to their meeting places, otherwise known as "stakes."
It's all here on this web site. There's also an online initiative to send a letter to the Mormon's, but really we need to [get] out into the streets and in front of them, shaming them for what they've done.
From all I've read, it wasn't the black churches, it wasn't even the homophobic evangelical or Roman Catholic churches who made the big showing in the Prop 8 election; it was the Mormon Church who went all-out to defeat it. As witness this statement from the NYT editorial excerpted above:
The most notable defeat for fairness was in California, where right-wing forces led by the Mormon Church poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaign for Proposition 8 — a measure to enshrine bigotry in the state’s Constitution by preventing people of the same sex from marrying. The measure was designed to overturn May’s State Supreme Court decision, which made California the second state to end that exclusion of same-sex couples. Massachusetts did so in 2004.
Like Mike says, responding to a Mormon caller on his radio show:
. . . the Mormon church leaders urged members to pour millions of dollars into taking away the rights of other people. That makes it a legitimate target now and certainly defines them it as a political organization. Rosayln, stop giving your money to the church until they stop funding hate and telling members to fund hate, and get others to do the same.
As long as it's all done peaceably and nonviolently, I say let's do it. Church or no church, you fuck with my civil rights, you fuck with my family, hell yeah you're gonna get protested. We haven't taken a damn thing away from you; but you've taken a hell of a big thing away from us, and we're not gonna let you get away with it quietly.
If, like me, you live in a homophobic town in the middle of nowhere in a state with ZERO antidiscrimination laws, and can't afford to lose your job by taking to the streets, you can get involved in the protests online at places like http://www.mormonsstoleourrights.com/ and http://www.invalidateprop8.org/.
Individuals shouldn't be harassed. People can believe what they like, it's a free country. But religion is no excuse for denying equality and civil rights to anyone. It's a free country, not a theocracy.
Oh and let's not forget the infamous words of the Mormon bishop of California yesterday, and his curt advice to gays and lesbians upset over the passage of H8: "Just suck it up." I saw him on a news video yesterday, but today, strangely enough, I can't turn up any video with that clip. Any Truckers out there who can find it, please pass it on so I can post it here in the Blue Truck.
I'll close with the "Home Invasion" ad that ran in California before the election. I think it's right on the money:
Does any reasonable person not believe that gays and lesbians deserve respect and equality? Not today’s Republican Party. Expert translators from Arabic have been dismissed for being gay. And applicants for the post of certified public accountants in the Iraq Green Zone have been asked about their view of Roe v. Wade. . . .
So here we are in 2008. With its indispensable Southern and, more widely, evangelical base, the Republican Party has become the stupid party.
In the election, the McCain-Palin ticket received the highest percentage of votes in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. The Southern Strategy succeeded. It succeeded in facilitating a Democratic landslide. This can not be good for the nation. We need two viable parties. . . .
In its embrace of the religious right under George W. Bush, the Republican Party became the stupid party. And committing suicide along with it has been the conservative movement. The party united around god, guns and gays is finished.
More than 2,000 people protesting California's new ban on same-sex marriage marched through Westside Los Angeles streets Thursday, snarling afternoon rush-hour traffic as hundreds of police officers monitored the situation. . . .
Thursday's march initially focused on the Mormon temple because same-sex rights advocates claim the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent millions to air deceptive advertisements in support of Proposition 8, and the church should lose its tax-exempt status.
"No one's religious beliefs should be used to deny fundamental rights to others," said Lorri L. Jean, chief executive officer of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. "Our civil rights are inalienable. . . .
Among the marchers was Ryan Suffern, 31, who said he and his wife came to support gay friends.
"I find it preposterous, this concept of protecting the sanctity of marriage, when -- looking at divorce -- marriage is a coin toss," he said.
Also demonstrating was Rakefet Abergel, 29, who married her partner of seven years the day gay marriage became legal this year.
"We just want to have the same rights as everyone else gets. We're tired of being second-class citizens when we are citizens of America," she said. "You don't have to agree with us but you have to let us be."
Demonstrator Taylor Miller, 28, was perplexed by the victory of Proposition 8 in the same election that swept Democrat Barack Obama into the presidency.
"It's strange because with Obama winning there's been a surge of really motivated liberalism," she said. "This is just ignorance, and ignorance is so last presidency."
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
and welcome to the Blue Truck, a blog for mature gay men with news and views on gay rights, history, art, humor, and whatever comes to mind. Plus a few hot men. The truck's all washed and gassed up, so hop in buddy, let's go.
CAUTION: For mature gay men only beyond this point. Some posts and links may not be suitable for children or the unco guid. You have been warned.
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My Story
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
