Reflections on Homosexuality
Conclusion: What Latter-Day Saints are right...and wrong about
One of my first encounters with a guy I knew to be gay happened on my mission. He was a guy who hung around our chapel every once in a while and one night, when my companion and I were meeting with two investigators, he invited himself to our discussion. After listening patiently for a minute, he then turned to my companion and made some direct sexual advances toward him. Now, I was a little confused since I was new in the mission field and my Chinese wasn't that...'advanced' yet, but my companion flew into a rage and threw him out of the room while our two investigators burst out laughing. Afterwards, my companion wouldn't talk about it, but the other elders in the church at the time did. More than one of them talked incessantly about 'dealing' with this guy, with two of them saying they were going to 'take him outside and beat him up'.
I'm sorry...
take him outside and beat him up? What possible interpretation of scripture could you come up with that would justify that as the proper action for a servant of the Lord to take towards his fellow man...
any fellow man? Did Jesus 'beat people up' who didn't follow His commandments? I thought this was a sad commentary at how much growing up we all needed to do. Even in the Church there is still a seemingly universal 'fear' of homosexuals--especially gay men--that causes other men to instinctively feel a need to 'prove their manliness' by...well, beating up 'unmasculine' men, I guess.
The word 'homophobe' is a overused clich?-often used by the gay rights side to characterize anyone who doesn't accept the homosexual agenda (not unlike the way 'racist' is used to characterize those who oppose affirmative action)--but in many cases it is a living reality. This strange, irrational 'fear' causes people of all ages and genders to respond to homosexuals in a completely different and opposite way than they would treat people who have committed other sins. If you hear that someone shoplifted something from a store, or watched a pornographic movie, is your first response to 'take them outside and beat them up'?
I didn't say anything at the time because, well, I was a newbie and didn't feel it was my place to open my mouth. That was my failing and I suppose this essay--albeit ten years too late--will take the place of the words I didn't say at the time. Guys--if any of you care what a 28 year old returned missionary has to say--if you want to be 'masculine' and 'manly', honor your priesthood. Be a good husband and father. Encourage people to do better through your kindness and compassion, not your fists. If you hear that a friend or family member is struggling with same-sex attraction, is your first response to see how you can help them, or is it to shun them so you don't catch the 'disease' or (worse) have others think of you as someone who 'associates with gays'?
The LDS Church, as in many things, has a stronger doctrinal position in this matter than most other churches. Unlike other churches, the LDS Church does not condemn homosexual behavior while at the same time giving members
carte blanche when it comes to heterosexual behavior. Doctrinally, it properly treats all sexual sin as being more or less the same, and in this way it is for the most part immune to accusations of hypocrisy by not attempting, as other churches do, to separate sexual sin into 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' components. Yet the behavior of its church members, even church leaders, is often contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. Why would any righteous member think 'throwing him/her out of the house' is the proper response to a confession of homosexual tendencies or behavior from a son or daughter? (Convince me it's not because you don't want other people to think you associate with gays...) Why does it seem that many church members would be more comfortable hearing that the two guys who live next door to them were
drug dealers than hearing they're a gay couple? Why is it many Church members treat gays as some subhuman race--modern day 'untouchables'--rather than children of Heavenly Father like the rest of us? Is there a faster way to throw a black cloud over a group of Church members than by telling them that there's a gay person in the immediately vicinity?
All questions with no answers, I guess... It may be too much to expect that Church members will come to understand how the Gospel really teaches us to treat homosexuals, since the track record of understanding and living the Gospel in many other areas is fairly lacking. Such is life...the constant pursuit of perfection for all of God's children which at times seems to be progressing quite nicely, and at other times...well, you want to hide your eyes. When more people remember that "God is love", not "God is sometimes love--but not when homosexuals are involved" then we'll be getting somewhere--and maybe the vast gulf of hate between the two sides of the gay debate might be narrowed a little.
