The More I Learn . . .

By Mister Curie

The more I learn about other religions, the less unique Mormonism seems and the less unique my own struggles seem and the more they seem indicative of the human condition.

I watched a couple of documentaries on Netflix "Instant Watching" this past weekend, "Trembling before G-d" and "Jihad of Love".

"Trembling before G-d" is about the struggles of homosexuals in Judaism and "Jihad of Love" is about the struggles of homosexuals in Islam.  I think the cultural circumstances were different enough from my Mormon upbringing that I was able to see the common struggles we all face.  It also makes me realize how lucky I am to have been raised in America.  If I thought accepting I am gay was difficult in American Mormonism, I don't know how Muslims can accept their homosexuality. 

The documentaries also made me realize how difficult it is going to be for my parents to learn of my disaffection and homosexuality.  It is easy for me to think of my journey as MY journey, but due to the interconnectedness of our lives, it will affect my parents' life as well. 

Pride

By Mister Curie

Philadelphia had their annual LGBT Pride Parade and Festival today.  I was curious what it would be like to attend, as I regularly read about how the "gay lifestyle" isn't a Pride Parade 24/7 and that the 30 second clip that makes the news isn't representative of even the whole Parade.  I asked Madame Curie if she and Le Petite Curie would like to attend the Parade with me.  Madame Curie had a variety of reasons why she didn't want to attend, but she was happy to have me take Le Petite Curie downtown and give her a day to herself.

Le Petite Curie and I had a great time.  The parade wasn't quite as tame as it sounds like the Utah Pride parades were, but the majority of the parade was regularly dressed people marching together behind banners of their respective supportive organizations.  It was only the few floats advertising the local LGBT night clubs that probably made it onto tonight's news.  I was impressed with the several church floats in the parade, showing their support for the LGBT community.  It still surprises me to see religious support for the LGBT community since Mormonism is not supportive at all.  Le Petite Curie loved the police cars, the fire trucks, the candy, and the bright rainbows.  I was a little surprised that the parade was as short as it was, only lasting 1 hour, and with several long gaps between organizations during the parade and the parade itself moved quite slowely.  Le Petite Curie would regularly turn to me throughout the parade and ask if there was more parade coming.  While observing the parade, we were surrounded by a lovely bunch of lesbians who enjoyed giving Le Petite Curie the candy, etc. thrown from the floats.

After the parade was over, we followed the parade route toward the festival and when we got to the judging area for the parade, we realized that we were almost at the beginning of the parade again (I said that it moved slowly), so we watched it a second time.  It was better watching it at the judging area because many of the groups performed for the judges and each group had a little introduction that gave the history of the organization in Philadelphia.  Le Petite Curie fell asleep on my back during the parade round 2, only waking up once when the fire truck honked its horn (he replied, "I can't sleep when it is so loud") and when it started to lightly rain. 

The only anti-LGBT protesters I saw today were near the judging area and at the entrance to the Festival.  One of the supportive church groups had counter-protest signs pre-prepared and their message was that "God made you, loves you, and accepts you just the way you are".

Then we entered the Festival.  The music and entertainment were enjoyable.  Le Petite Curie and I enjoyed walking around looking at all of the booths.  Le Petite Curie particularly enjoyed that the Festival was on the Philly waterfront and so he could watch all the boats in the water. We had a really good time.  It was great to see people enjoying themselves and celebrating overcoming the struggles they felt over who they are, contrary to societal norms.  It felt good to know that I could just be me and that was alright.  It was interesting and a bit comforting to have the baseline assumption be that I am attracted to men.  While standing in line for the porta-potties, Le Petite Curie was trying to flirt with one of the lesbians standing in line ahead of us and she struck up a conversation with me.  She mentioned that she was the oldest of six children and had a twin brother, "who is also LGBT".  In her short statement, she naturally included me in that world.  It felt good.  And while the baseline assumption of people who saw me at the festival is probably as far from my current condition as the baseline assumption of ward members at our ward camp-out the day before, I felt that at least they would accept and empathize with my journey. 

I've always loved rainbows.  It was nice to be able to enjoy them and sport them without worry that people were getting the wrong idea (or, actually, the right idea that I didn't want them to get).  And so, when it was time to leave, I left my rainbow wristband on, so I could carry the spirit of pride back home with me and I could be "out" just a little longer before re-entering my closet.

(All of these photos are my actual photos from the event, and yes that is my arm with wristband).

Anniversary

By Mister Curie

It is roughly the one year anniversary of when I admitted to myself that I am attracted to men.  As I have documented previously, it was through a "Same Sex Attraction" post on a Mormon marital intimacy blog that I began to accept that I am gay.  The original blog has been deleted by its creator so I can't document the actual anniversary.  However, there was a companion blog where the topic was covered a week later.  The date of the post on the companion site is June 16, 2009.  As that is next week, I figure it must have been sometime this week, a year ago, that my mind first really started to wrap itself around the idea that I could be gay.

It has been a pretty crazy year.  In remembering this anniversary, I realize that I've been rewriting history a bit inappropriately.  I have always stated that I couldn't accept that I was gay while I was a believing Mormon, however I now realize that isn't entirely correct.  A year ago I was a true-believing Mormon, and a year ago I admitted to myself that I am attracted to men.  I talked to my wife about it and then largely put the knowledge on a shelf.  A little over two months later, my wife told me that she no longer believed in the church and my process toward becoming a disaffected member of the church began.  Then, approximately two months later, I took the gay thing off the shelf and started to examine it a bit more.  I guess it makes sense why I get the chronology confused.

Filling in the Gaps

By Mister Curie

Madame Curie and I listed to another excellent installment of Mormon Stories Podcast last night and it really filled in a lot of the gaps.  The podcast guest was Daymon Smith, who did his Anthropology PhD at the University of Pennsylvania (where I currently attend school) on the subject of the  LDS church correlation program.  It was an absolutely fascinating podcast that I highly recommend.  Learning real church history, not the stuff they teach at church, largely led to my disaffection.  It became obvious after doing a minimal amount of research that we do not learn a lot of the real church history because it has been sanitized out of the curriculum by the correlation program.  The question I have had since becoming disaffected from Mormonism is wondering how we went from the crazy 19th century church founded by Joseph Smith that was filled with charismatic gifts and alternative lifestyles (polygamy) with a definite anti-American government bend to the organized and decidedly American religion we have today.  In studying church history, it seemed to me that there was a shift in things around the turn of the 20th century, right around the time that Utah was obtaining statehood and polygamy was being banned.  But it was more than just banning polygamy, so that didn't explain everything.  Daymon Smith researched this exact time period of the church and has some fascinating  insights.

I was raised as a "Correlated Mormon" with the false world view that the church correlation program provides.  The church correlation program gives the impression that the LDS church is the receptacle of eternal truths that have always been present throughout history because they come from an Eternal God.  This gives the impression that modern inventions, such as the Temple Endowment, were originally instituted with Adam and Eve and have been repeated in all dispensations of the world, such that a temple endowment was performed in the Jewish tabernacle and temples (such as Solomon's temple), and that Christ gave his apostles the endowment (but evil and designing men removed reference to it from our scriptures), and that even BoM peoples had the temple endowment.  Such correlation reinforces processes that Joseph Smith initiated with his translation of the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  Correlation presents the image that if the Bible had been translated properly and not altered by evil men, it would largely read like the Book of Mormon with its testimonies of Christ, as if Old Testaments prophets (and you could group Lehi, Nephi, and the Brother of Jared into people from the same time period as Old Testament prophets) knew and bore testimony of Christ.  Once you strip away the correlated world view, it becomes obvious that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century religious commentary that doesn't even match our own correlated doctrine.  Abinidi's sermon to King Noah is not an exposition of the Godhead (where the role of the Holy Ghost wasn't cannonized until the early 20th century largely through the efforts of James E. Talmage), but rather a 19th century trinitarian exposition.  The "fullness of the Gospel" with Priesthood ordination, temple endowment, and Eternal marriage are not in the Book of Mormon.  In fact, the current structure of the church that we "Correlated Mormons" know and love has only been in existence since the early 1980's.

My favorite quote from the podcast is: "Through the institutionalization of what is called correlation, you can explain away every error of correlation as an error of faith, but you can credit everything that happens in the church as a result of correlation."  To me, this quote explains how you can find perfectly documented historical information from church history that is simultaneously historically true and "eternally" false. 

I highly recommend the podcast, you can listen to it here:
Daymon Smith

To those hounded by the BYU Honor Code Office

By Mister Curie

So, according to this Deseret News article, the sports department knows of a little trick to get their athletes around Honor Code violations:

In past situations dealing with honor code issues, some BYU students, including athletes, in connection with counsel from an LDS Bishop, have withdrawn from school before the university's honor code office officially deals with their case and makes a determination on their standing as a student. In this regard, if that person receives a required ecclesiastical endorsement after one or two semesters, they can return to school without a university ruling on a non-academic issue.

BYU operates on a three-semester system. Missing spring and summer sessions is equal to a full fall or winter semester.

Just thought I'd pass the information along. It's not fair that the athletic department keeps their secret from everyone else.

The Meaning of Life

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.  I don't think that's what we're really seeking.  I think that  what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."

- Joseph Campbell

"I help myself by making a distinction between the idea that 'we make everything up' (which I don't think is accurate) and 'we give meaning to all that we consciously experience' (which I do think is accurate). . . . Each of us has to create our own frame of reference, which ultimately means only I decide if I am acceptable, if my accomplishments are adequate, and if my life matters. . . . [Some have] connected the idea that 'there is no inherent meaning' to the idea that 'it's all pointless'.  Not for me.  The point for me is that I have to get from here to the end of my life and how I do so matters to me. . . . So for me the question is . . . who will define meaning? If I give other people the power to define meaning for me. . . then I guess the point is to live according to the meaning they define.  Or, I can exercise the power within myself to define meaning for myself. . . . But, based on what?  I answer this by considering what I value.  For me that's the point.  What do I value?  I value being a good [partner]. Now I have meaning in my life. . . . I value being smart. Now I have meaning. I value deepening my way of relating with those closest to me. Now I have meaning. . . . and so on."

- Jake Eagle

Having lost faith in Mormonism, I have been questioning what is the meaning of life if it wasn't The Plan?  If there is no God, as I increasingly believe, is there a meaning to life?  These quotes have given me a lot to ponder.  I think that as we recognize those things that we value and then live our life in harmony with those values, we will find that rapture of being alive and joy in our existence.  And I think that just might be enough.

Seeking a Revelation for the Church, Part II

By Mister Curie

The Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), which largely claimed to be the True church of Jesus Christ due to the belief that succession rights of the Prophet were through the lineage of Joseph Smith rather than through the Quorum of the 12 Apostles (as contrasted with the LDS church based in SLC), recently received and approved a revelation granting full membership rights to gay members, including gay marriage.  This adds Section 164 to their Doctrine and Covenants.  Further details on this momentous occassion are available on the blog By Common Consent.  The actual wording of the revelation now known as D&C 164 can be read here.

Of note, the Community of Christ extended Priesthood rights and responsibilities to women in 1984 in D&C 156.

A fascinating podcast on the Succession crisis in the LDS church that lead to the different branches can be listened to at the following links:

http://mormonstories.org/?p=792 (Part I)
http://mormonstories.org/?p=801 (Part II)

I suspect that the LDS church will grant Priesthood rights to women before they fully accept homosexuals, so if we use this timing as a guideline, approximately 26 years after women get the Priesthood, gays will be able to get married and be fully accepted in the LDS church.