Someone somewhere decided spirit could be trusted but body could not. I don’t know who decided it. I suspect it had to do with St. Augustine and something about the Greeks (that is to say I’ve heard things but not remembered them).

For me, body is surely at least as divine as spirit. Neither is perfect, but in Mormon thought they will both eventually be. If God can speak to my spirit, God can also speak to my body. I was built to resonate with good things, in body and in spirit. I trust them both. When I cry and when I laugh it is a meeting of both in celebration or mourning. Continue reading →

As I was going to sleep, I started thinking what tomorrow’s church would be like as I often do. This will be the “post-conference” week, so I imagine EQ/RS lessons will largely be discussions of which talks were are favorite, what impressions we had, and the importance of following the prophet.

I dread tomorrow.

This is the Sunday of the worst platitudes Mormonism has to offer. People will say they were so glad that Elder Holland talked about how all voices in God’s kingdom matter. Someone might say they liked Elder Renlund’s talk on sin because they felt he was talking to them and they needed to know that Christ felt past their sin. The class will probably make a joke about whether or not Elder Uchtdorf used a flying metaphor.

I started reflecting on why I dread tomorrow–four years ago, I’d be the one exclaiming how much I loved conference as well. And tonight as I thought about it, I realized it’s partly because it’s hard to talk about how ‘applicable’ conference is or how ‘it was as if the leaders knew me’ when that’s exactly the opposite of how I feel. At least in this moment, it’s hard to imagine that any of the Apostles or other leaders of the Church–maybe even my family and friends–understand how I feel. Continue reading →

I am a gay member of the church and have been disfellowshipped from the church for eight years. Through all these years I have remained active in the church. Even though I have thoroughly repented and been in full compliance with the hyper-religiosity and everything my bishops and stake presidents have asked me to do, and was living my life fully in alignment with church standards, my multiple attempts to be reinstated have been denied over and and over. It has always been very puzzling to me, since my whole experience as a member my whole life, and serving as a bishop for four years, taught me that church discipline is not intended to be like this. Church discipline should always be done in love, maintain the dignity of the individual, and for the repentant it should be brief. Even if someone has been excommunicated, after a year they can be re-baptized if they have been repentant.

There are several reasons why I think my case has gone on for years and years. First, I should clarify that my disfellowshipment was not due to any illegal or heinous behavior. However, I have been told that while the sin was relatively minor, because I was a bishop, the penalties are much higher. Though I was only disfellowshipped instead of excommunicated, the Office of the First Presidency intervened with my stake president’s decision and mandated that my discipline last a minimum of five years. Normally, disfellowshipment lasts no longer than a year, and it is almost unheard of for the church employees of the Office of the First Presidency (who hold no priesthood keys) to interfere with the decisions of stake presidents who hold the priesthood keys for church discipline within their stakes. The fear of having First Presidency scrutiny of my case has deterred my three stake presidents over the years from reinstating me, even after the five-year minimum was met. Combined with some other factors, it has been a continuously unsuccessful effort to try to be reinstated.

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When news broke in January that Daniel Ruettiger, the Notre Dame footballer who inspired the movie Rudy, had joined the Mormon Church, few could have predicted it would start a fad. Some religious scholars are beginning to believe that might be the case. Since “Rudy’s” baptism, in the first quarter of 2017, at least 56 nationally recognized athletes, actors, and other performers have taken the Mormon baptismal plunge, reports Dr. Mitch Edmonds of the Organization for Religious Statistics. According to Edmonds, that represents a 341% increase over the previous peak in 1912, when the entire cast and crew of the film Tell Me, Truly joined the Church during its promotional tour.

Among the A-listers joining Mormonism already in 2017 are Oprah Winfrey, talk show host, actor, producer, and CEO of her namesake network, OWN, and Ellen DeGeneres, actor, talk show host, and voice actor who provided the voice for Dory in Disney’s animated films Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. Continue reading →

Sometimes in the LGBT Mormon sphere there is silence and then there is noise. The last few days have been noisy. A video about the Xian, Becky, and Scott Mackintosh family was added to LDS Church website(s) in multiple places including mormonandgay.org and the lds.org homepage. Bryce Cook of ALL Arizona posted an extensive overview of the gay Mormon conundrum. Apparently, a soon-to-be-released Ensign article suggests same-sex marriage is a counterfeit of opposite-sex marriage. I viewed the Mackintosh video and read Bryce’s paper, but I have not read the Ensign article and do not plan to. Continue reading →

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In a stunning turn of events, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints publicly endorsed polygamy as genuine marriage and called all civil marriages counterfeit marriage in the April 2017 Ensign.

For perhaps the first time since the second Manifesto, the Church has openly endorsed polygamy as only one of two genuine forms of marriage. Continue reading →

The Church’s recent release of a video showing North Star International Board member Becky Mackintosh’s family loving and accepting their openly gay son Xian has caused much discussion in social media.

While many laud this video as a step in the right direction, and indeed a lifesaving step in the right direction, it smacks as hypocritical to many LDS LGBT who see the “open door” love and acceptance modeled in this video slam shut on an institutional level when the church rejects the LDS LGBT children of these families when they legally marry.

They are getting closer to telling our stories, but they aren’t getting it completely.

This video may be an important development, but a far greater gift to the LDS LGBT community was quietly rolled out late last night that deserves both our full attention and gratitude.

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I just had my piano tuned by someone I would consider a master of his craft. I found him by chance in the grocery store parking lot last Tuesday. He had a decal advertising his profession on his vehicle.

In conversing with him while loading groceries into my car, I found he comes to town once a year from Montana for a couple of weeks to stay with family and while he is here he tunes pianos to pass the time. I asked him to please come over.  Continue reading →

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Psalm 51:17

A familiar anthem rises universally in LGBT writings and speech. It is the triumphant declaration: “I am not broken!” Sometimes at our most vulnerable moments in life we need to hear from others “You are not broken” before the actualization of this powerful statement independently ignites in our soul.

So much surrounds us that wants to extinguish this idea. Perhaps no one knows this better than our LDS LGBT. While each coming out story is unique, every gay Mormon passes universal milestones common to every such journey. One common milestone is the point at which you realize you are different from your typical peers at church. Continue reading →