[Posted on my brother's blog 22 November 2015 (click to view.)]
[Back posted here for the record and with a new footnote, and to bypass the Tumblr formatting that Miles uses.]
The Mormon Church recently
promulgated a policy that considers a person in a marriage with another person
of the same sex to be apostate, subject to a mandatory 'disciplinary council'.[4]
This is where people are excommunicated; lesser forms of discipline are
possible, but excommunication is the norm in a case of apostasy. A separate
policy segregates children of a person who is in a same-sex relationship,
married or not. In certain circumstances, such children cannot be given a name
and blessing (analogous to a christening, shortly after birth), be baptized
(otherwise normal at age eight), or otherwise participate in ordinances or
sacraments, until they are 18 and make independent decisions, decisions which
include disavowing their gay parent's lifestyle.[5]
The response among Mormons has been
varied, including cries of hoax, quick rationalizations, dissociation
(detachment), disassociation (including resignations in significant numbers), despair,
depression, risk[6] of
suicide, and anger.
Anger
Why anger? When a church does
something hurtful, I expect four reactions:
> Pain (and anger) from those directly affected.
> Disassociation, including resignation, from a few for whom (typically)
this is the last straw in a long line of complaints.
> Rationalization—“it’s all ok, they know what they’re
doing”—from a few.
> Relative quiet from most, the many who are not directly
affected and busy with the rest of their lives. (Not that they are uncaring or
unknowing, but that they worry about other things.)
In the present situation I
experience, and see and hear anger, and it is affecting the fourth class, the
otherwise quiet or busy elsewhere.
Essential
Conflict
The obvious source of anger is the
children: How can this possibly make sense for the children!?
But as I try to make sense of this, I
think there are deeper roots of the anger as an outward expression of irreconcilable
conflict.
On the one hand, Mormonism wants to be universal. The Church
teaches the Plan of Happiness. This is not (or not only) a marketing slogan.
Mormons really believe:
[C]onsider on the blessed and happy state of
those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all
things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end
they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state
of never-ending happiness. (Mosiah 2:41, Book of Mormon)
Mormons believe that the ordinances or
sacraments--including baptism and marriage and more—are necessary to this state of never-ending happiness. And that these
sacraments are only available in the
Mormon church performed by proper authority in the authorized manner. So much
so that Mormons devote significant time and resources to genealogy and proxy
work (in Mormon temples) performing the saving ordinances in the names of and
on behalf of the dead.
It takes a cruel and uncaring mind
to hold in one place Happy and Necessary and Exclusive and then kick people out. Mormons are not cruel and
uncaring. Mormons can make sense of people excluding themselves by choice . . .
by sin, in religious jargon . . . but to exclude people by the color of their
eyes or an accident of birth or their sexual orientation feels wrong.
On the other hand, marriage of
same-sex couples is like a perfect storm of trouble for Mormonism.
Consider that in the Mormon
imagination god is an anthropomorphic embodied Heavenly Father[7]
paired with a Heavenly Mother about whom nothing is known except gender.
Consider that the self or spirit or
soul is very long to infinite in duration, individual and self-aware, generally
anthropomorphic, and in particular gender specific, i.e., male or female.
In this Mormon imagination there is
no place for essential homosexuality, i.e., gay (and straight and in-between)
as essential characteristics of the person. The Mormon imagination could make
sense of choice, i.e., homosexuality as an alternate life-style choice which a
person could opt in or out of. The Mormon imagination could make sense of
disorder, i.e., homosexuality as a disorder or disability that can be cured in this
life or the next. However, Mormon imagination has no room, no place, no rationalization,
that includes homosexuality as an essential characteristic.
And yet society in general, with
Mormons along for the ride, is moving or has moved to an essentialist
understanding of homosexuality.[8]
Different stories could be told, but in my view social acceptance began with gay people coming
out in sufficient numbers that gay is (no longer) ‘other’ but ‘us’, i.e., my
sister, my cousin, my friend, my neighbor. When that happened it became obvious—obvious
because we’re talking about real known human beings, not abstractions—that they/we
are not choosing and are not sick. That they/we are really truly gay (or
straight, or bi-, or whatever). In my simple view, again, social acceptance has
culminated in marriage. Any number of equal protection, equal treatment,
anti-discrimination measures might have been that culmination, but marriage is
what happened and marriage is extraordinarily powerful both symbolically and in
practical reality, in recognizing gay people as the real thing, not transitory,
not choosing, not disordered, not counterfeit, but really truly essentially gay.
Finally, consider that Mormons
understand marriage to be the ultimate and forever state of being. Marriage is
ideally "for time and all eternity" and in that form marriage is a
condition for exaltation or the highest degree of glory.[9]
For Mormons it is no small matter
that social acceptance culminates in marriage. For Mormons, considering the
state of marriage as eternal, patterned by God, and necessary to exaltation,
marriage is the single most challenging, threatening, impossible to
conceptualize, way to recognize gay people as essential and real.
Thus the battle for hearts and minds
is engaged:
> Mormonism wants to be universal.
> Mormonism and a Mormon heaven and Mormon happiness requires permanent
dimorphic pairing—“male and female created he them."
> Mormonism has no room, on earth or in heaven, in concept or
practicality, for homosexuality as an essential characteristic and same-sex
couples as married.
The 2015 Mormon answer is to expel
same-sex couples. Exclude them from the community. For same-sex couples the
state of marriage is so antithetical to the Mormon imagination that it is apostate by definition, apostate not for
belief or teaching or action, but apostate by simply being. Although the church
would never say in so many words, I think it is no exaggeration to say that for
the Mormon Church a married same-sex couple is a living contradiction, an
embodied offense.[10]
And yet they are my brother, my
uncle, my friend, my neighbor. They are me, in every way that matters. How can we
possibly square this with the command that “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself”? (Matthew 22:29, RSV)
So I am angry.[11]
Then
there’s the children.
The situation for my married gay
friends make me cry. And then there’s the children. Children of gay parents are
denied saving ordinances. For no fault of their own, in a church that believes
it is one’s own sins that count. This is very difficult to rationalize, to make
sense of, to feel anything but despair or anger about. In the first few days
after the new policies became known, with regard to the parents, the same-sex couples,
I heard a lot of anger but also despair and resigned acceptance, a reluctant “to
be expected” reaction. About the children, I heard rage.
The official explanation regarding
children is that the ordinances are not denied but only delayed (“there is time
for that”, “nothing is lost in the end”), and that separation from the Church
in their minority is for the benefit of the children, to minimize conflict, to
protect them.
Many observers, Mormon and
non-Mormon, conservative and liberal, advocates and critics alike, find the
“benefit of the children” explanation unpersuasive or at least incomplete.
There are many family situations, including divorce and remarriage (male-female
marriage), member/non-member/part-member parents, believers and unbelievers,
even excommunicated (for other reasons) parent or parents, where Church
policies take no notice in determining how children are respected and included.
All this even though the “benefit of the children” rationale would ring just
the same. There are only two situations where children are affected by their
parents’ status: children of polygamous parents and children of same-sex
parents. Both involve marriage that is forbidden by or antithetical to the
(current) Mormon church. In both the children are treated differently because
of their parents’ status. The disease rationale, the sense of the Church
avoiding infection, comes all too easily to mind.
How is this possible, in light of Jesus’
words: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such
belongs the kingdom of heaven”? (Matthew 19:14, RSV)
What
to do about it?
What should the church do? My first thought
is that nothing I say or write will make the least bit of difference. The end.
My second thought (logically
inconsistent with the first) is to address the Church: “Please don’t.” “Please
stop.” “Please change.”
My third attempt is to look for
something that could really happen in the near term. And there I really do have
an incrementalist prescription.
First, with respect to the children,
let it go, if necessary by indirection. It may be too difficult as an
institutional matter to explicitly reverse ground. The Church seldom apologizes
or changes tack quickly. Acknowledged change happens, but at the pace not of months
or years, but of generations. However, quiet change happens routinely,
sometimes just by changing emphasis. With respect to the children of gay
parents, this has already started by way of a November 13 letter from the First
Presidency that limited the scope of limitations on children and allowed for
local discretion in some circumstances. With modest modifications, smart
training, selective emphasis, and local discretion, it is very possible to get
to a point where the offending language remains as official policy but instances
of actual offense are rare and reversible.
I would find that embarrassing, but
in a realpolitik sense it may be the best we can do.
With respect to gay members who
marry, I have two directions to suggest. First, in the near term, apostasy
usually but not always ends in
excommunication. Emphasis on the “not always.” It is possible to reason that
excommunication should be used only when the couple is causing trouble, which
arguably is only when the couple is noisy, actively teaching or speaking
against the Church. And not when they are simply being themselves. I have no
doubt that many local congregations and bishops feel that way already. On a
day-by-day, life in the pew, love thy neighbor sense, Mormons (as also most
religious people) have a lot of experience and are pretty good at welcoming all
kinds of quiet radicals.
Second, in the middle term (and
short of revelatory change in doctrine) the Church could make good use of its
general approach to exceptions and variety. The Mormon imagination I outline
above doesn’t really have room for single adults. It doesn’t really have room
for divorce. It doesn’t really have room for complicated patterns of
marriage-divorce-remarriage where a child might find herself with several sets
of parents. And yet we find a way. A dash of humility, a pinch of “God will
provide,” a sprinkling of “it will work out in the end,” a heaping spoonful of
grace, and life goes on. There is no slippery slope. No rush to general
application. Notwithstanding the headline news of 2015, marriages of same-sex
couples will forever be extraordinary—very small in numbers and vitally
important for the few. Just the right situation for quiet exceptions, even if
never fully rationalized.
In sum, what I would do is celebrate
marriage and don’t ask too many questions.[12]
Worship a God who encompasses all of creation in all of its endless variety.
[1] Anger is mine. This
entire essay is personal—an “as I view it” and “why I am angry” essay. I am not
channeling anybody else.
[2] I try to use "marriage" consistently, not
"same-sex marriage" or "gay marriage." Significant
litigation and legislation has occurred around the idea of same sex couples
being allowed to marry and regarded as married under the law. It is important
that "marriage" is not a separate or second class, but marriage the
same for everyone. "Same-sex marriage" does not exist in any jurisdiction
that I know about. Only marriage. Also, to use the SSM phrase, in some hands,
is a political gesture, an attempt to re-argue cases that have been decided, or
treat them as still open questions.
[3] In discussing Mormonism I am using an “in the pew"
version of Mormonism—call it Mormon “talk” as opposed to Mormon “doctrine.” I
am no expert in Mormon doctrine. I do claim 60 years (personally) and five
generations (family history) of Mormon experience and about as much expertise
as anybody in how Mormons talk.
[4] See https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/rifts-mormon-family-what-just-happened
for an excellent description of what happened and how people reacted, posted on
the University of Chicago Divinity School web site, by Grant Hardy.
[5] The policy with
respect to children is complicated, has already been revised once, and is
subject to discretion and case-by-case judgment at several critical points.
These variations are important and a proper subject for a much longer piece.
[6] I am not aware
of any suicide linked to the new policies, but it has been reported that calls
to suicide prevention hotlines spiked and people in the know are keeping watch
and worrying.
[7] I
can't afford to stop at every point where my beliefs are different, but I have
to break out in a few places and this is one of them. I think this is a
seriously deficient view of god, and in its limitations even as metaphor is a
source of misunderstanding, disagreement, and trouble for Mormonism. But my
opinion here is definitely not “in
the pew” Mormonism.
[8] I
cannot time this very well. My own thoughts and understanding date to 40 years
ago in a relatively unexamined 'this is the truth about my gay friends' sense,
and to 20 years ago in a more carefully examined 'this is the way the world
works' sense. By contrast, it is only in the past couple of years that I have
heard gay Mormons say things like 'my sexuality is part of my identity, and I
expect to be gay in the resurrection', and have heard straight conservative
Mormons expressly react to and resist such thoughts.
[9] With apologies
to my never married or not now married Mormon friends. I know there is more to
this, but I don’t have a softer version at the "in the pew" level of
Mormon talk.
[10]
It literally makes me nauseous to write these words. My wife describes me this
way:
And my husband
Curls and cries,
Grief in his beard,
With groans
too deep for words.
Curls and cries,
Grief in his beard,
With groans
too deep for words.
What I’m going to do about it is the subject of
thought and prayer, but not here.
[11]
My anger has been festering for 20 years now, since the mid-1990s when I
started to see all of this coming at least in broad outline. Unfortunately, the
current state of affairs is worse than my worst fears (the children!)
[12] If
you read “don’t ask, don’t tell” that’s an OK pragmatic reading, but this is in
fact a plea for epistemological humility.
No comments:
Post a Comment