The End

I never thought it would happen, but I’m not going to be going to church anymore. This has been a very hard decision for Chris and I. We love our ward family. We love our bishop, but after the recent actions the church has made concerning married gay people and their children, we don’t feel right attending or supporting this institution anymore. I can’t even go into a church. I’ve always said that no matter how weird a Mormon I was, I would still continue to be one so long as it continued to make me feel good. 

Two weeks ago it stopped making me feel good.

I came home to find an article stating that the church was releasing new rules in their handbook. Gay people that are married are now considered apostates and are to be excommunicated. Their children are not allowed to be members until they are eighteen, living outside of their parents’ home, and disavow the practice. At first, like many, I thought this must be a joke. A lie. Then I started checking every news site I could think of, and they all were reporting the same thing. Understanding slowly started to fill my body. It started in the pit of my stomach and spread to my limbs. It was a cold, numbing burn that felt like it was being carried through my veins and into my extremities. My whole body felt limp. Then the tears came. They started as a trickle and moved to a downpour. 

This was so so very wrong to me.

There are so many reasons why this resonated inside of me as wrong. In the coming days the church and members began to explain away most of them—trying to rid themselves of cognitive dissonance, I’m sure. But no matter what excuses I was given, that’s all they were. Excuses. Rationalizations. Trying to make everyone feel better for this whole handbook provision. I judge no one, honestly. I love everyone from my ward. I love my friends back home. I love you all. But I can’t rationalize, and I can’t get rid of the ugly feeling inside of me. This post is to explain why, and to help people understand things maybe a little differently than they understand in their worlds. This is to help all those I love understand me, and maybe keep them from judging my husband and me in a negative light. So here it goes.

I’m bisexual. 

A lot of people look at this word as an ugly word. It doesn’t really exist to them. It’s not real or it’s just a weird phase teenagers go through. Or whatever. They will read this and think it doesn’t apply to me because I am married to a man. This isn’t a new revelation. I’ve known I was somewhere on the spectrum since I was a kid. Chris has known since we were dating. It’s not new for him either. I never “came out” so to speak, because I think coming out is silly. Why should we have to do that? Bring home your date. Show them to your parents.  Whatever their sex. Be done with it. That’s how it should be.

I have always known how the church feels about homosexual relations, but there was one difference between then and now. It was up to the bishop to decide the “punishment,” so to speak. People weren’t automatically excommunicated. It was up the bishop’s discretion. I’ve known many bishops who wouldn’t do anything. They wanted these people to continue to be included. They were welcomed with open arms, or just left alone, or whatever. And they weren’t automatically referred to as apostates. I took issue when people were excommunicated because of their sexual orientation, but again, it mostly depended on the bishop. I could handle that, and mostly looked at the positivity the church was making with the LGBT community. I attended the wards that I felt good in. I didn’t attend those that made me feel bad.

But now we’ve label them as “apostates.” An ugly word by our definition, only given to those who have abandoned their deepest sense of morals. They are pushed away. Oh yes, I know they can attend church if they want to, despite not being a member. But let’s be honest. Once someone is excommunicated, they are not usually welcomed with open arms. They are scoffed at. I have experienced this more than once. So while the idea behind the practice might be one based on love and dignity, the realism behind it is one of shame and self-doubt. Why would someone want to return after that? Do you know which groups of people aren’t automatically labeled as “apostates?”

Murderers. Rapists. Child abusers. 

In fact those groups of people are in the maybe-give-some-discipline group of the handbook. So in essence we are calling two people whose only “sin” is loving each other worse than those people who do things out of pure hatred or control. And now their kids aren’t allowed to be members either, due to something that they have no control over. They can attend church, yes, but again I looked at the realism behind this idea.

Kids are mean.

What happens when a little boy or girl is in a class and everyone else is getting baptized, but he or she cannot? What happens when the other kids ask why so-and-so isn’t getting baptized like everyone else? Someone is going to reveal that it is because so-and-so’s parents’ are married and gay. There will be talk, and that talk will follow them through church. They are going to feel bad when they can’t be baptized. It will come up again when they can’t get the priesthood. And again when they can’t do baptisms for the dead. And again when they can’t get their patriarchal blessing. And again when they can’t go on a mission. In essence, we’ve painted a big, red target on their backs that will follow them through life. I know what the idea behind the rule was. But realism and idealism don’t always match up.

And lastly, in order to become members, these kids cannot be living with their parents and then they must disavow gay marriage. More problems in my mind. What age were you when you fully didn’t need the support of your parents’ house anymore? Were you 18? I wasn’t. I was much, much older. Then we make them disavow the practice. They may not have to use their parents’ names, but that doesn’t matter. Their parents will know that in order to become a member they said gay marriage is a sham, and therefore are going to feel very hurt as the loving providers and caretakers of this child’s entire life, because in essence, their marriage is being called into question. This doesn’t feel loving. It feels horrible. How would you feel if the tables were turned?

But wait, my friends say. How many people actually want their kids or themselves to go to church when the church so obviously doesn’t fit in with their “lifestyle?” I know of several friends who are in this boat, and are now horribly hurt because of this ruling. We don’t know anyone’s life. We don’t know what they want or need. Just because someone doesn’t fit our mold perfectly, that means they can’t want to be a part of something they consider beautiful? I’m pretty much agnostic, but I have always loved the teachings and the community of the LDS church, so I attended faithfully. I have never been able to say I “know” anything is true. I’ve never even been able to say I “believe” anything is true. What I said is that I “wanted” it to be true. I planned on having different rules at home than the church taught. There are tons of members with different guidelines at home than the church teaches. I grew up with different rules than the church taught. It was fine for me. Kids aren’t stupid. They are resilient. Why are we okay, but children of gay people are not? And I wasn’t a true blue Mormon, but people still wanted me to be there. 

Or so I thought.

So how does this all come together? Why does this have anything to do with my being bisexual you ask? Clearly I’m in a heterosexual marriage, so why do I feel hurt? Because that night, I realized something. I realized that if you kept everything else constant about me—my personality, my silliness, my loving nature, my want to follow Christ’s teachings—all the things that people say they are glad to have from me in the church (including my atypical Mormoness), and changed the sex of the person I love (which could have definitely been a possibility), I would suddenly be labeled worse than a murderer, a rapist, a child abuser. I would have been an apostate, and nothing else would have changed about me. I would no longer be the primary teacher everyone is glad to have their kids going to. I would no longer be the cute ward hairstylist that everyone wants to go to. I would no longer be that girl that everyone is excited is still going to church, despite the fact that she is atypical. I would be an apostate, and my kids and I would be barred from membership. I would no longer be good enough to be a member. Not only that, but I would be lower than a murderer. Just because of the sex of my partner.

And that hurts so deeply I cannot even describe it. 

 

My poor children, who chose nothing, would be left out. And in order to be accepted they would have to declare my marriage, my loving relationship, my raising of them a problem. A sin. Unholy. A sham. It was hard enough to think of other people going through this, and then when I thought of the very real possibility I could be one of them, I collapsed. It hurt so much to think that the institution I loved so much would throw me and my family out. And that, did not feel like Christ’s teachings. It didn’t not feel like the God I’ve been taught to know and love. It felt ugly. And that is how my husband and I feel about going to church now. And that is why we won’t be there anymore. Stepping into the building feels like endorsement, and we can’t endorse something we feel this ugly about. I would be a hypocrite. And I won’t be a hypocrite.

We place no judgment on those that stay. Your religion is your religion. It’s personal. It’s your choice. If you feel good there, you should be there. We love everyone from our ward family, and we hope that people stay in touch with us. We know that we will lose friends over this, but we hope that those that we’ve felt real love from will continue to love us. I love my primary class. I love all of the wonderful things that my ward family has done for me over the years. We love our family. We love our friends. We still love all of the beautiful teachings the church has to offer. If this ruling changes, you may see us in your halls again. But right now, we do not feel any spiritual uplifting from those halls and we have to stand for what we believe is right. If anyone feels the need to talk to someone, because they are having issues too, we are there for you, objectively. We know this step isn’t for everyone, but we also know it’s nice to have a non-judgmental ear. If you want to talk to us about why we should stay, please refrain. We’ve made our decision, and we feel good about it.

I love you. I hope this helped to clarify things.