Soy Made Me Gay

I was in my dorm in the MTC when an Elder in my district told us about a letter his mother wrote to him (yes, missionaries discuss the letters your write to them with other missionaries).  She was asking advice about a situation in her ward in which a young single woman got pregnant by her boyfriend.  This young woman wasn’t a close friend, but was simply a good acquaintance.  The Elder’s mother was confused and unsure of how to proceed.  While she wanted to reach out to this young woman, she didn’t want her support to be viewed as approval of the young girl’s situation.  She wanted to “avoid the appearance of evil” and the best way she decided to do that was to simply avoid the issue and the young woman.

We sometimes find ourselves in a position to associate with people who either have different standards than us or don’t live up to their own standards.  So what do you do when one of the young women in your Laurel classes gets a bun in the oven? (And we aren’t talking about homemaking meeting.)  Or what about the guy you grew up with in Scouts who now lives with a guy named Tarquin who makes his own curtains?*  Or the coworker that you know for certain regularly smokes pot.  If we are representatives of Jesus Christ, we shouldn’t be seen in the company of known sinners because people may assume that we agree with their actions and attitudes, right?

Right?

The problem with all of this is that we are trying to live according to “sound-byte doctrine”.  Sound-byte doctrines are phrases and ideas that are gleaned from the scriptures (sometimes) and are treated as commandments by popular culture even though they may not have originally meant what popular religious culture has turned it into.

This particular bit of sound-byte doctrine originally comes from the scripture found in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 which says, “Abstain from all appearance from evil.”  This seems pretty straightforward on first reading, but if you look (in the LDS edition of the scriptures), you’ll see a footnote on the word “appearance”.  Apparently this word comes from a Greek word, which means “kinds”.  With this in mind, we see that the scripture now says “[a]bstain from all kinds of evil” (emphasis added).  The footnote goes on to point to the Topical Guide entry for “Apparel”, suggesting the verse has more to do with our personal standards than how we associate with others.  In fact, we see that the previous reading of the scripture doesn’t really mesh well with the actual example Jesus set in His life.  He was constantly found among the people that society had labeled “sinners”.  Some of these were merely the poor that people assumed were sinners because of their poverty, but some were people legitimately involved in serious sin.  We have no record or reason to believe that He ever condoned sin, but apparently Jesus didn’t equate association with sinners with condoning their behavior.

“Avoiding the appearance of evil” is a perfect example of sound-byte doctrine because the catchiness of the phrase causes it to get stuck in people’s head where it is given extra weight in making decisions about associating with friends and love ones who don’t share our standards.  I don’t believe we should place ourselves in situations in which we may become tempted or situations that would offend the Spirit, but I believe that following the example of Christ also involves showing kindness to people of other standards and ideals.  You can’t show kindness to someone you never associate with.  In fact, Jesus had nothing good to say about people who maintained an appearance of righteousness for sake of appearances only (the “whited wall” and all that).

We should follow the Spirit when deciding on whom we will associate with in our lives, but I would suggest that we be careful in this as well.  In associations where the Spirit is absent, we should make sure that the Spirit hasn’t withdrawn because of our own feelings of prejudice or discomfort rather than the influence the people we are associating with.

Sound-byte doctrines are grey doctrines (at best) and are often abused by religious cultures to excuse some very bad behavior.  Sometimes this is intentional, but, more often than not, they are used by people who are legitimately confused and are looking for direction in their lives.  In the example above, the missionaries in my dorm agreed that the Elder’s mom should show an outpouring of love for the young unwed mother-to-be.  The mom was genuinely looking for the right way to handle the situation, but we thought it wasn’t her role to punish the young woman for her actions; it was her role to be a Sister in Zion.  If the young woman used the pregnancy as an excuse to leave the Church, that was her decision, but it shouldn’t be a decision made easier due to a judgmental ostracizing by the membership.

The biggest danger of sound-byte doctrine is that they can replace prayer, pondering, and scripture study as a source of guidance when deciding how to live our lives.  But then again, relying on a Deseret Book-purchased cross-stitching as an oracle for life advice sure does free me up to watch episodes of Heroes online.  (A “Nikki” by any other name is still boring, by the way.)

*Bonus points for getting this reference.

…I’ve just been crazy busy.  Europe was amazing, but now I am buried in a sea of post-vacation work and am dealing with a problematic internet situation at home.  There will be updates, just…later.

Thanks for sticking around! :-)

So, I am going on my first honest-to-goodness-take-more-than-one-day-off-work vacation in over two years.  Tomorrow I leave for a week and a half to go to Europe.

Friggen A.

What does that mean for Soy?  Well, it means that it’ll be neglected for the next couple of weeks.  I’d fully intended on writing several posts and scheduling them to be go up while I was away, but with a mountain of pre-vacation work that I’ve been hit with, it doesn’t look like I’ll have the time.  I’ll leave comment moderation off (so, play nice), but that also means that there might be some spam or crazies lurking about.  I apologize, but I’ll just have to deal with anything like that when I get back.  Plus if your incredibly insightful comment gets wrongfully snatched up by the spam filter, sorry, it’ll be up in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading and you’ll hear from me when I get back!

-Clint

I flipped through the songs on my iPhone until I found one by Blink 182.  I belted out the words as I drove on Interstate 20 towards Atlanta.  I was returning from my nephew’s baptism in a surprisingly good mood.

For the past few years, every time that I had attended a family event, I returned feeling stressed and depressed.  I was frustrated with this because I loved my family and couldn’t explain the feeling of isolation and sadness I felt when I was around them.  I usually returned home with a lessened desire to keep the commandments.  Christmas alone usually caused a month’s worth of emotional turmoil.

But as I flipped the next song, I found that I wasn’t experiencing those feelings this time.  I thought about what was different.  The main difference was that it was the first family gathering since I came out.  I came out because I finally accepted myself for who I was and I had a renewed confidence that I hadn’t experienced for a long time.

My family treated me the same as they always had (which was a good thing) and I enjoyed playing with the kids and talking with the grown-ups.  Not long before I left, one of my brothers came up to me and said with a grin, “nice purse you got there.”  He motioned down to the small bag that held my mother’s digital camera that I had borrowed.

“What?” I said, looking down at the bag.  “Oh, it’s mom’s camera.”

“Looks like a purse to me,” he said, grin widening.

“Whatever,” I said, mildly annoyed.

“It’s really small and cute,” he continued.  My irritation flared.  What was the deal?

In an instant I realized why I was annoyed.  When I was around my family in the past, I found myself slipping into the attitude that I had during high school: I must always project an image of straight masculinity.  My annoyance had nothing to do with my brother.  In fact, whether intentional or not, the message he was sending to me was, “just because you are gay doesn’t mean you are immune from my teasing.”

I smiled.  “This is nothing.  The man-purse I normally carry is way bigger.”

He laughed.  He didn’t care about the bag at all.  He was my brother and I was his.

I switched the song to “Hysteria” by Muse and started singing at the top of my lungs to keep myself awake as I drove through the dark.  Soon I would crest the hill and see the Atlanta skyline glowing ahead in the distance.  My family was behind me.

Just like they’ve always been.

I have a few rules with respect to this blog.  One is that I don’t update it more than a two times a week.  Posts generally take me an hour or two to write (including research, links, etc.).  I don’t feel like devoting more time than that to writing about how I’m the sort of fellow that spends at least half an hour (more like 45 minutes) determining what cut of jeans he is going to buy at Target.  Another rule is that I don’t write when I am emotionally down.  When I write in a funk, my writing isn’t very funny and is often, well, depressing.

But today I am breaking that rule.

I’ve been down for a couple of days now.  It started when I went to the temple.  A lot of people enjoy going to the temple because they find it to be spiritually uplifting or at the very least get a since of service out of attendance.  On my mission I was the same way, but then again, my mission was kind of a spiritual “Twilight Zone” that doesn’t seem to have a close relationship to my spiritual life in the real world.  Point being, temple attendance since my mission has been problematic at best.  Instead of feeling lifted up by going, I often left feeling depressed, miserable, and emotionally drained.  The temple seemed to represent everything that had gone wrong in my life and intensified whatever emotional issue I was having at the moment.  Faced with that every time I went, my frequency decreased until I hadn’t gone for quite a while.

But things change, right?

I decided to go to the temple again this week with my close friend.  It had been a long time, but I had faced a lot of my emotional issues head on and felt I was ready to go again.  Shortly after entering, however, I realized I was in for a rough evening.  It was as if I was under constant spiritual attack – so much so that I was completely taken off guard.  I had expected it to be difficult, of course, the level was almost unbearable.  Compounding the situation was the number of people assuming that my friend (a woman and engaged to another friend of mine) and I were a couple.  Someone spoke to me referring to her as my wife.

“We aren’t married,” I said.

“Ah, your girlfriend then,” he continued.

“No. Just friends,” I said quickly.

“Okay, you just look like a couple,” he said.

“Maybe something will blossom there,” a woman in the corner said.

Why wouldn’t they just shut up?  No, we were not a couple.  No, nothing would “blossom there”.  I knew they didn’t mean anything by it and it wasn’t the first time this friend and I were confused for being a couple, but my anxiety was already high and caused me to become really distressed over the exchange.

As the session continued, I was flooded by all the anger, doubt, and worry that had plagued me on previous visits to the temple.  I felt powerless against it.  I sat there trying to keep myself from passing out because of the inundation of negative emotion.  Even old self-disgust reared its ugly head again.  “You’re sick,” came the thought, “You’re a perverted, sick freak.”  I immediately knew the source and knew that it wasn’t me.

“Don’t you dare!” I yelled back in my mind, “DON’T YOU F****NG DARE! Don’t you even start with that bull***t!  That is NOT TRUE!”

I said it was intense.

That line of thought immediately died, but the rest of the confusion and worry continued.  Later as I sat praying much of the intensity had subsided, which left me exhausted.  In a spark of thought I realized my worst fear.  I realized that my worst fear wasn’t to live my life alone.  While a life of general solitude wasn’t what I wanted, I realize what I was more scared that the Lord would tell me that I should get married…to a woman.

Afterward I was talking to my Mom on the phone while pacing around the temple grounds in tears.

“I don’t think He’ll require that of you,” she said.

“He’s done weirder things,” I replied.

She paused.

“I guess this is like Brigham Young and polygamy,” she finally said.

I realized she was right.  While my mind recoiled at the thought of the Lord asking me to pursue heterosexual marriage, it’s not like he hadn’t done something very similar before.  When presented with “The Principle”, Brigham Young responded:

I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin.  (Journal of Discourses, 3:266)

Plural marriage went against his very core, yet he had a desire to be obedient.  He went from wishing for death at the very thought of marrying a second wife to eventually having more than fifty.  The thought of me marrying a woman goes against my very core.  The thought of me eventually even becoming a champion for mixed-orientation marriage I find deeply distasteful.

I don’t believe that I received a command from the Lord to pursue heterosexual relationships.  I don’t see what I felt to even be a heads up that such a command is going to happen down the road.  Maybe it will.  Maybe it won’t.  Whatever happens, the Lord made it clear that He requires that I be willing to give Him everything.  Everything.

And that scares the hell out of me.

I knew that it would come and sure enough, roughly one week after coming out my ward, friends, and the Internet, I caught myself thinking, “well, what now?”

Church went along as normal yesterday (as I expected it to).  Work is going along as normal.  Life is going along as normal.  I knew it would, but it is sometimes strange to actually see it..  The world didn’t explode once I revealed that I, in fact, think Lee Fanning from Pushing Daisies is just adorable.  I wasn’t stoned for making it known that I was in the group of people watching Resident Evil for Eric Mabius, not Milla Jovovich (it’s not like anyone watched it for the plot).  When all was said and done, it wasn’t as important to people that I was gay as much as I was trying to live my life in a Christ-like manner-which is something we have in common.  Sometimes people surprise you.  Sometimes, they wonderfully don’t.

So where do I go from here?  To be honest, I’m not 100% sure.  I have some ideas of a long-term direction, but I’m still figuring things out a bit.  The Church has done its job well; I want a family.  It’s just the whole wife part that I’m not really on board with.  Gay marriage is out.  So…yeah….  A large problem for me is that, well, I don’t like working – at any job.  When I’m the only one who benefits from it, it feels especially pointless.  Sure, sure “keep myself from starving to death in a gutter” carries some motivation, but providing for a family seems like it would be more worthwhile.  Yeah, someone to go through life with would be nice.  It would even be nicer if they were hot….

Anyway.

I’m not dwelling too much on this.  I learned a while ago that if I focus too much on the future, I end up making myself miserable.  The future will happen whether I worry about it or not.  So, I think about it for a while and then leave it alone for a bit.  But yeah, the future…who knows?  You know?