10-09-2010, 01:10 PM
There are gay Muslims as well as gay Mormons. Even if one manages to undo the theological conditioning there are the social and cultural roots that are often so deeply embedded they are not easily dug out. If you have not been brought up in one of these mind-bending cults it is easy not to "take it too deeply". It is a very different matter if you spend the rest of your life trying to get over not just the conditioning, but the anger of having been lied to. Generally I'm pretty-well balanced these days, but Boyd K. Packer makes my blood boil. He wrote the following in a pamphlet that is still current policy in the LDS church. It was first published when I was a teenager and I remember being given copies of it at church.
I have never met Elder Packer (such a great name for a homophobe, I always thought), but I did have one or two encounters with the former President of the LDS Church, Spencer W. Kimball. It is difficult to emphasise enough just how strongly Mormons "know" the president of the church to be a "true prophet of God". For all intents and purposes he might just as well be God, because every word that comes out of his mouth is treated as literal gospel truth. About sixty years ago Kimball wrote a book called "The Miracle of Forgiveness", which was a text I was expected to read and digest as a fifteen year old enrolled in their "seminary" education programme. It contained such gems as:
Sermons (we called them "talks") in church on Sunday often took on this fire and brimstone mentality and it was not unusual to hear homosexuality being lumped in with bestiality, child abuse, rape and occasionally even murder by particularly zealous church leaders as heinous sins. If you are growing up trying to make sense of the world and trying to become a good person you don't escape that kind of conditioning unscathed.
When I was fourteen I was at a conference of maybe a thousand people in London and Kimball (before he became president) was the main speaker. During his delivery he called all the fourteen year-olds present to join him at the pulpit. He spoke to us each in turn and extracted a promise that we would all serve a two-year mission when we reached the age of nineteen. He gave me a ten-shilling note to start my "missionary fund" savings account. Now, 50p might not seem much these days, but in 1969 it was a big deal. I kept that note as a reminder of the promise I had made, knowing that the last thing I ever wanted to do was to serve a mission.
At sixteen, as I've said on here before, I met a girl who became my best friend. When I was nineteen I got married instead knowing that I could not then be sent on a mission. I was also racked with guilt over having succumbed to the kind of hetero-curiosity (a bit of kissing and petting) many of us experience and felt that the honourable thing to do was to marry my girlfriend. The guilt I felt for years at having spent that money on something else and the cowardly way I got out of keeping my promise has long since been replaced by anger that I, and many like me around the world, was placed in the situation of having to make that public commitment in the first place along with the knowledge that I took a crazy way out of confronting my sexuality, which has consequently had such a devastating effect on other people - notably my ex-wife and my children.
Sil, I accept what you say. Most Mormons at grass roots want to be good people and many are very honourable. I heard recently that, for the first time, numbers of members in the LDS church are actually declining. This has been fuelled by a dislike of the political activities the church leadership are dragging the organisation into (such as the Prop 8 scandal). The church notoriously continuously revises its texts without informing its members (very 1984) and the teachings of the church are a little more realistic than they once were. For example, bishops were once told to get gay men married off telling them the love of a good woman would cure them. Nowadays they have to be a little more subtle than that! All that considered, though, breaking away is still very difficult. I am delighted to hear that your ex and his parents managed to put human decency and family love above dogma. That may be a little easier on this side of the Atlantic. One of my sons married in Utah and I was not allowed to attend the ceremony through my "unworthiness".
Quote:The Lord specifically forbids certain behaviors, including all sexual relations before marriage, petting, sex perversion (such as homosexuality, rape, and incest), masturbation, or preoccupation with sex in thought, speech, or action (see A Parent's Guide, pp. 36â39).
Homosexual and lesbian activities are sinful and an abomination to the Lord (see Romans 1:26â27, 31). Unnatural affections including those toward persons of the same gender are counter to God's eternal plan for his children. You are responsible to make right choices. Whether directed toward those of the same or opposite gender, lustful feelings and desires may lead to more serious sins. All Latter-day Saints must learn to control and discipline themselves.
I have never met Elder Packer (such a great name for a homophobe, I always thought), but I did have one or two encounters with the former President of the LDS Church, Spencer W. Kimball. It is difficult to emphasise enough just how strongly Mormons "know" the president of the church to be a "true prophet of God". For all intents and purposes he might just as well be God, because every word that comes out of his mouth is treated as literal gospel truth. About sixty years ago Kimball wrote a book called "The Miracle of Forgiveness", which was a text I was expected to read and digest as a fifteen year old enrolled in their "seminary" education programme. It contained such gems as:
Quote:Unnatural and Wrong
All such deviations from normal, proper heterosexual relationships are not merely unnatural but wrong in the sight of God. Like adultery, incest, and bestiality they carried the death penalty under the Mosaic law.
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. ...
And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.
And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death. ... (Lev. 20:13, 15-16.)
The law is less severe now, and so regrettably is the community's attitude to these grave sins--another evidence of the deterioration of society.
Sermons (we called them "talks") in church on Sunday often took on this fire and brimstone mentality and it was not unusual to hear homosexuality being lumped in with bestiality, child abuse, rape and occasionally even murder by particularly zealous church leaders as heinous sins. If you are growing up trying to make sense of the world and trying to become a good person you don't escape that kind of conditioning unscathed.
When I was fourteen I was at a conference of maybe a thousand people in London and Kimball (before he became president) was the main speaker. During his delivery he called all the fourteen year-olds present to join him at the pulpit. He spoke to us each in turn and extracted a promise that we would all serve a two-year mission when we reached the age of nineteen. He gave me a ten-shilling note to start my "missionary fund" savings account. Now, 50p might not seem much these days, but in 1969 it was a big deal. I kept that note as a reminder of the promise I had made, knowing that the last thing I ever wanted to do was to serve a mission.
At sixteen, as I've said on here before, I met a girl who became my best friend. When I was nineteen I got married instead knowing that I could not then be sent on a mission. I was also racked with guilt over having succumbed to the kind of hetero-curiosity (a bit of kissing and petting) many of us experience and felt that the honourable thing to do was to marry my girlfriend. The guilt I felt for years at having spent that money on something else and the cowardly way I got out of keeping my promise has long since been replaced by anger that I, and many like me around the world, was placed in the situation of having to make that public commitment in the first place along with the knowledge that I took a crazy way out of confronting my sexuality, which has consequently had such a devastating effect on other people - notably my ex-wife and my children.
Sil, I accept what you say. Most Mormons at grass roots want to be good people and many are very honourable. I heard recently that, for the first time, numbers of members in the LDS church are actually declining. This has been fuelled by a dislike of the political activities the church leadership are dragging the organisation into (such as the Prop 8 scandal). The church notoriously continuously revises its texts without informing its members (very 1984) and the teachings of the church are a little more realistic than they once were. For example, bishops were once told to get gay men married off telling them the love of a good woman would cure them. Nowadays they have to be a little more subtle than that! All that considered, though, breaking away is still very difficult. I am delighted to hear that your ex and his parents managed to put human decency and family love above dogma. That may be a little easier on this side of the Atlantic. One of my sons married in Utah and I was not allowed to attend the ceremony through my "unworthiness".
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