Two weeks after news of the exclusion policy broke, my bishop called me into his office. He is a kind man, and I know he means well, but he sees my life as a lesbian as one full of pain, sorrow, and sin. He’s told me before that he thinks I am strong to face this road, as if it was my choice, as if my sexual orientation is a millstone around my neck. He cannot see the joy in what I am, or the beauty- only the eternal consequences. I was nervous to be singled out this way, and apprehensive that what he had to say could offer me any comfort.

“Sister Bijtje, the Stake President has asked that I reach out to any members who may be struggling with news about the recent policy regarding LGBT members and their children. I wanted to make sure you understand that this is coming from a place of love and we have to trust in our leaders.” Continue reading →

In a way, modern pornography caught the Mormon church off-guard, and it wasn’t because no one saw it coming. When the ‘Net was young and ruled by AOL, NetZero and AltaVista, Mormon leaders were already warning male audiences of the dangers of the Internet and the enemies that lurked there. In October 1997, Gordon B. Hinckley sounded the alarm:

Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly.

I was 10 years old at the time he spoke these words, and I would hear this same message repeated relentlessly in the meetings I attended throughout my teen years. It was clear to me that the leaders of the church were terrified of pornography, and they intended for us to be as well. And it worked. Continue reading →

What would it be like in chess if you spent the game protecting your Bishop, and not protecting your King?

Monday a friend and I made dinner while her husband played chess with the kids. From across the room I heard him instruct one of the children “protect your Bishop!”

it instantly brought to mind the Mormon Newsroom statement released earlier in the day about Utah ranking particularly high in the nation for child abuse, and the church released a statement about their policy for dealing with child abuse.  As I have only read the one article, I’m not going to address that policy or statistic hear today. However basically,  it was about the church protecting itself at the cost of children. I felt very similarly about the infamous policy released last November,  it feels like a pattern.

As the night progressed, my friend kept fishing for information on why I wasn’t going to church. I skillfully dodged that most the night, because I didn’t feel she was ready for that conversation.  I knew it was going to be horribly awkward when I told her I had resigned.

Finally the moment came, and I had to tell her. Continue reading →

The question is this:

Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice);

or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?

Wilford Woodruff

President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, November 1, 1891

This was a traumatic episode for the Church. Years of teaching and preaching and digging heels in over the revealed religious sexual practice of polygamy almost led to the demise of the church. The Mormon identity was polygamy. And despite our best efforts over a century to scrub away the polygamy, the Mormon brand of polygamy is still embedded in the nation’s psyche despite the generations. Now that’s the kind of brand identity staying power any ad agency would die for.

Continue reading →

During a recent conference for LGBT/SSA Mormons and their family and friends, one of the participants shared a gut-wrenching statistic: at least 32 LGBT Mormons have ended their own lives since November 5, 2015. The actual number is undoubtedly higher; many cases are not reported. There are ongoing efforts to improve the tracking of such numbers. I was not present at the conference but heard the news afterward in an event recap by John Gustav-Wrathall and later as it was shared on social media.

To be candid, I don’t know quite what to do with this information. It’s horrific. I am reminded of an assertion made by a tour guide at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, that every person who dies is an entire world that is lost to us. We are losing worlds too quickly.

A gloriously divine principle was revealed to us through Joseph Smith: “The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” This is a beautiful thought, and it has power to transform our lives to the extent that it enters into us and we become convinced that it is true. I am absolutely convinced.

Continue reading →

This morning, as I was talking to a friend I had a deep realization, the buddy system works. The Buddy System, something many of us were taught as children to keep us safe from would be kidnappers, in adulthood has much broader uses.

 In fitness having a work out buddy can make you much more committed to working out on a regular basis. In weight training or gymnastics, having someone to spot you  can help you not to injure yourself. As I found out this morning, the buddy system can also help encourage you to make important doctors appointments that you’ve been putting off out of fear and deep loathing of going to the doctor.

 In my life as a member of the LDS church, the buddy system played an integral part to many key moments of my life. Continue reading →

In 2009 I was scouring the internet for hope. I knew was attracted to men, but what worried me more was that I was not attracted to women. My search led me to the website for Exodus International, a non-profit Christian network that provided assistance to those with concerns of unwanted homosexual attraction. The URL at the time was exodusinternational.org, but you won’t find it there anymore. In fact, the only place you’ll find it now is on archive.org’s Wayback Machine. This is what it looked like back in 2009:

Continue reading →

Yes, I stole an Adele line to grab your attention. But, I do think it’s time we answer the call from that person “on the other side”. Now, what I’m about to write is hardly innovative. I might as well just tell you to be a well-rounded individual and let your life move on. However, in listening to the story of many, many LGBQ Mormons, this was a constant theme of either heartache and struggle or balance and peace. Don’t wait until Adele has to come calling after 20 years for you to finally listen. Perhaps it is best if you answered now.

When I “came out”, most of the people in my life were die-hard Mormons. Sure, they might have sworn once or twice or watched that R-rated movie once, but it rarely seemed that they questioned the Church. Most of our conversations about religion were your typical conversations of young adults at BYU: why did Bishop allow him to be EQP? What does faith really mean for Alma? And can we please make the closing prayer last only a minute? One of the apostles said so.

Continue reading →

Source

Years ago, my older sister came home from school with a terrifying short story to share: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. I was only around ten years old at the time but I read the whole thing, and the image of the black spot remains ingrained on my mind these nearly 20 years later. I almost cried when I finished it. If you have not read it before, please do. I can only say that it is indeed terrifying.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that membership in the Mormon church is a lottery, and one with extremely low odds. I say it is a lottery because it is largely based on chance rather than merit. The probability of living in a time and place where the church even exists and is accessible is very low. If you were born into a Mormon family, you’ve got a pretty good chance of being Mormon for life. But if not, the chances you will join the church as an adult are very low. This is the “lottery of joining.”

Continue reading →

We recognize that same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States and some other countries and that people have the right, if they choose, to enter into those, and we understand that. But that is not a right that exists in the Church. That’s the clarification.

With the Supreme Court’s decision in the United States, there was a need for a distinction to be made between what may be legal and what may be the law of the Church and the law of the Lord

Elder D. Todd Christopherson, November 6, 2015

No Kidding.

This is not the first time the church organization has made a distinction concerning the law of the land versus the law of the Lord concerning marriage.

However, the first time this distinction was made it was between what was illegal and what was the law of the church and the law of the Lord.

Continue reading →