More Questions

I watched this video recently. While I don't agree with everything he says, a lot of it rings true to me, it's what I've lived myself.



My whole life, I’ve been told that this is not how you were created to be. You are just defective. Wait til the resurrection to be fixed. The rhetoric of “unnatural” “abominable” has toned down since Kimball, but the doctrine remains the same; and the message over and over is you don’t fit. You don't have a place in the plan of salvation as we know it.

I look back at the history of homosexuality and the church. Why is it that as a church we justify any means, even psychologically damaging ones, to fit people into the doctrine, fit into the plan of salvation who don't fit? Why did BYU say we’re going to justify showing pictures of naked men, and then shocking your genitals until we cure this? Or alternatively, and more recently, we’re going to psychologically break you down and use unapproved therapeutic methods until we get to the root of the matter and fix it.

Why is it that myself and many other gay Mormons have felt depression, anxiety, guilt, suicidal even, over just existing? Just being. Just trying to live from one day to another.

Why is it that the person must change, and not the doctrine or the institution?Science suggests that sexual orientation is inborn and is unable to be changed. That it’s natural and normal genetic variation. What if they are right?

I think they are right. I didn't choose to be gay. I just am.

And while the church does acknowledge this possibility, to a degree, their response is well, live the best you can with this challenge, this struggle, this burden, this defect, and someday, in the next life, God will make it right.

I'm not defective, broken, less of a man, less of anything because I'm gay. It's part of who I am. God does love all his children. And he loves them as they are.

And while I know this, it's difficult to week after week, day after day go to church and hear in one form or another the opposite.

Some may say, if you feel that way, why don't you just leave? And others say, you can do this, you can be strong enough to stay in the church in spite of the turmoil.