Works of Darkness

The news about the verdict in Ferguson, et al. v. JONAH, et al. was eclipsed somewhat last week by the news about the Supreme Court ruling on marriage. But I think it was equally important, if not more important.

At stake is the question of what, precisely, homosexuality is. Namely, is it a natural human variation like skin color or height? Or is it a disease that ought to be cured or contained? Or to pose this in theological terms: Did God make me gay? Or is my gayness a consequence of the Fall? These are philosophical and theological questions that few, it seems to me, are qualified to answer definitively. I had a discussion about this with an actual philosopher (I happen to know a few) and he, very reasonably I think, pointed out we probably can't know the answer to that question. Philosophers are famous for telling us what we can't know. But this question, all the same, is at the heart of our society's Big Debate about homosexuality. And that might explain somewhat the vehemence of feelings on both sides, because we are debating something that has real-life consequences and requires real-life decisions, that hinges on our answer to a question that is extremely difficult to settle.

The American democratic system, I think, errs on the side of protecting human agency. That's what our constitution and Bill of Rights are for. We enumerate the powers of government and then we reserve the rest to the people. It also errs on the side of equality. Our constitutional system eschews treating individuals differentially -- even when our social norms and customs incline us to do so in relation to race, gender, sexuality, etc. American history could be viewed as a struggle to implement these constitutional principles of freedom and equality against inegalitarian cultural norms and values. So I think Americans who are undecided about the larger philosophical questions have ultimately embraced same-sex marriage on the basis of a commitment to these constitutional norms of freedom and equality. I think many Americans are able to set aside their personal beliefs (or doubts) about what homosexuality is, in favor of letting individuals decide for themselves and keeping the system neutral. In other words: "Against Gay Marriage? Then Don't Have One." That's an eminently American solution to this problem.

It gets a little more sticky when it comes to therapies geared toward changing sexual orientation. The JONAH case ultimately boiled down to a question of consumer fraud. You can't advertise that you are able to change somebody's sexual orientation, and then take lots of money from people and fail to deliver. The case really was not about the rightness or wrongness of so-called "reparative" therapies. It was about being really honest about what bill of goods you're actually selling under that rubric. Though people have very strong feelings about the rightness or wrongness of reparative therapies in se that stem back to our opinions on this extremely-difficult-to-answer question about the nature of homosexuality. But the American system, I think, will tend toward answering this problem as well by saying people should have the freedom to seek reparative therapy if they want, or forego it if they want. That's the reasoning undergirding the California law that bans reparative therapies for minors. Essentially they're saying minors need to be protected because they don't have full freedom under the law, but once you're an adult you can choose this if you want. I think it will be very hard in the U.S. to ban reparative therapies for adults.

That having been said, there's some rather inconvenient testimony that came up in the trial, that would seem to bear on questions about the nature and etiology of homosexuality. You can read unofficial transcripts on-line if you want, to suss out the gory details yourselves (if you're inclined to read many hundreds of pages). What it boils down to for me is guys who are determined, at all costs, to overcome their homosexuality, who end up getting naked with other guys, touching themselves naked in front of other guys, getting massaged by other guys and/or holding or cuddling each other in various settings and in various stages of dress. I've been willing to observe a polite silence about all this kind of stuff, which has been a kind of open secret for years, partly because I wasn't sure it was actually true. I think the trial transcripts have settled the question of whether this stuff actually happens. And the trial has also, I think, settled the question of whether this stuff actually helps people become straight. And most people with two pennies worth of sense would say of course not. But in court we had the benefit of expert testimony that that's not legitimate therapy.

What this looks like to me is guys who are desperate for physical contact with men, who are willing to accept it if you call it therapy, and if you tell yourself that it's all in the name of helping cure you of some psychological problem that stems from not having a healthy relationship with your father. (Reality check: most gay men I know, myself included, have had very normal relationships with their fathers. And I know totally straight men who've had awful relationships with their fathers. And another aspect of this therapy that I find disturbing is its emphasis on parent-blaming, which includes, for instance, beating parents in effigy.)

I understand the yearning for physical touch with someone you feel attracted to. I'm inclined to view it as a very good, important part of human biological programming that serves the eminently good purpose of creating cohesion in intimate relationships that provide the building blocks for social order. And same-sex attraction and same-sex relationships have contributed and always will contribute to that social order, which is why what the Supreme Court did this past week is very important.

I empathize with individuals who are desperate for that physical touch, but who feel conflicted about it. I've been in that place. It's a very lonely, frightening place. And I don't want to add burdens to those who are still in that lonely, frightening place.

A line needs to be drawn at lying and secrecy about these so-called therapy practices. Silence about this serves no one. It just contributes to the aura of shame that is so stifling and deadly to gay men (or men with "same-sex attraction" -- whatever you want to call this). I think there's a reason the scriptures (and specifically the Book of Mormon) have harsh words for so-called "works of darkness." Secrecy enables fallacious claims about what this therapy does and does not do. It's not curing anybody of homosexuality, that much seems clear. And if it's not, then it looks like just plain, old-fashioned homosexual behavior. That's why there's been so much secrecy about it. The secrecy has also served as a foil for the hypocrisy of fighting same-sex marriage and condemning gay men and lesbians who are being open and honest about their need for intimacy and relationships and who are seeking to meet those needs in an honest and socially responsible way. It's high time that kind of hypocrisy end too.

Should Gay Men and Lesbians Be Abstinent Before Marriage?

I've blogged elsewhere about the principles of chastity, and why I think they are important regardless of sexual orientation. I have spoken and can speak first hand about the ways I've experienced casual attitudes toward sex in the gay community A) making a life-long marital-type commitment more difficult to achieve, and B) generally working in both subtle and unsubtle ways to undermine such a commitment once you make it. I also believe that a life-long marital-type commitment is highly desirable, though it is not always easy to achieve. I believe it offers the greatest potential for happiness within a relationship. But more important than that, I believe it offers us the greatest opportunity to grow into our full spiritual stature -- precisely because of the challenges and difficulties involved in making this kind of relationship work.

I think principles of chastity have the greatest likelihood of working well if we commit to them not out of superstition or legalism, but because we understand the stakes and costs involved in building a committed relationship, and we are willing to make the investment. I believe that our willingness to be abstinent before a relationship does help us to establish habits, norms and discipline that will strengthen our ability to be sexually faithful within a relationship. More importantly, "where our treasure is, there will our heart be also." When we stay abstinent before a relationship and faithful within a relationship, we are essentially making a powerful statement -- both within our own mind and heart, as well as to our partner -- about how we value that relationship, and how we value sex within that relationship. Sex, in other words, becomes special because we are willing to treat it as special. And relationships become special because we are willing to be disciplined in our efforts to cultivate and nurture our relationships in this way.

Chastity is obviously not the only thing we need in order to cultivate a happy relationship. Other values such as communication and a willingness to make sacrifices are essential to make a relationship work. Obviously, chastity isn't even the only thing we need in order to successfully negotiate the sexual aspects of a relationship. In order for sex to be satisfying and mutually relationship-enhancing, we also need to develop traits such as compassion, the ability both to enjoy and to give pleasure, and we need to be able to communicate about sex. (Chastity is good for a relationship but prudishness is bad.) And we also need to have a realistic understanding of the limits as well as the potential of sex. (Sex won't fix conflicts in other areas of the relationship, for instance!) I won't comment a lot on the issue of sexual compatibility (i.e., entering into a relationship with someone with whom you feel a strong mutual attraction) other than to say I think it is very important. Chastity alone does not equal marital happiness. But it is a powerful contributor, and we can learn lessons from cultivating chastity that will help us make a relationship successful in other areas.

Not being sexually abstinent before marriage doesn't mean a committed relationship cannot succeed or even become extraordinarily committed and loving! I know that because, as I have described elsewhere, I certainly was not abstinent before entering into my relationship with my husband. A relationship is nothing if it is not capable of growing, and if it is not flexible. In another post, I used a "dance" metaphor to describe how a relationship works. What makes a relationship succeed or fail has as much to do with one partner's reactions to the moves of the other partner (and vice versa) as it has to do with the specific dance moves. So I feel I ought to temper my comments by stressing that there's no hard, fast formula for success in a relationship.

At the same time, I want to say that gay community social norms encouraging promiscuity and my own earlier unwillingness to commit to principles of chastity, I eventually realized, created problems and issues in my relationship with my husband that needed to be worked through in order for our relationship to become more joyful, loving and fulfilling. I feel there is a lot of damage that was done by some of these attitudes that has had to be repaired. If I had things to do over again, I would do them differently. And it would be my hope that, as future generations of gay men and lesbians begin to establish and build new relationships, they can benefit from the mistakes I and others of my generation have made.

A few members of the Moho Facebook community have started a Facebook group called "Gays Who Favor Premarital Abstinence." This seems to me like a great place for us to explore the issues and challenges related to gay and lesbian relationships in our culture. I see the creation of a group like this as a hopeful sign that we are beginning to transcend the homophobia that has disabled previous generations.

Perversion

Around the time I was coming out, I went to see a therapist.  This therapist was an Episcopal priest.  My purpose in seeing him was to work through some of the issues I was struggling with in the process of coming out.

One of the spiritual principles we discussed was the impact that secrecy has on our psyches.  He reminded me of scriptures that warn about the fate of those whose "works are in the dark" (Isaiah 29:15).  This was around the time that a number of scandals involving Catholic priests molesting children were coming to public light.  He suggested that the closet fosters abuse.  When individuals have this huge area of their lives involving intense sexual feelings shrouded by guilt, and when they keep those feelings a huge secret, when there's no public accountability, the groundwork is laid for terrible, abusive acts.

We see something of this every time a sex scandal, like that recently involving an anti-gay Lutheran pastor in the Twin Cities, comes to light.  This pastor, who publicly condemned same-sex relationships in the harshest terms imaginable, was himself having gay sex.  He was engaging in acts in presumably anonymous settings.  And -- by his own confession -- was projecting demonic influences on those with whom he was having sex.  So one must assume that these were acts performed with a sense of hatred -- hating himself and also despising the one with whom he was performing these acts.

When my husband and I make love, we do it in a context of trust and commitment that we have sealed publicly.  We gathered our closest family, our friends, and members of our spiritual communities, and we covenanted in a public place -- in a church -- in a spirit of prayer.  We came before God and before all who cared to witness, and we covenanted to be true to each other and to take care of each other.  So when we make love we are able to do so in that context of care, nurture and commitment.  These acts, instead of being a performance of self-hate and hatred of another, can become sacraments.  They can help us help each other to become better, to love more fully as we come to believe ourselves worthy of love.

My purpose in this reflection is not to add further shame or humiliation to that undoubtedly already experienced by Tom Brock, or others in his situation.  In a sense, even if his actions had never been publicly exposed, I would say that what he has done is already its own punishment, far worse than whatever condemnation or shame I could try to add.  It's tragic actually.  Who has been the worst victim of the anti-gay hatred and intolerance he has spewed over the pulpit and over the radio waves?  This moment of revelation -- this proclamation from the housetops what was "spoken in the ear, in closets" (Luke 12:3) -- it only makes me realize that he was his own worst enemy.  His fear, his hate only kept him from finding the kind of love that could lift him up, give his life greater meaning and happiness, while making someone else happy, lifting someone else up, and making someone else feel loved.  Instead, he's relegated himself to works of darkness and self-loathing.

I should be the last one to condemn or to publicly shame, because I know from first-hand experience what it means to be trapped in that place of darkness and fear and self-loathing.

What is striking to me is how context and intention -- matters of the heart -- so utterly determine whether an act is sinful or saintly, whether from that act can flow good or evil.  Physical acts, in themselves (or, I should add, the genders of the partners engaging in them), reveal nothing about whether that act is good or evil.  The context and the context alone can reveal whether an act is a demonic performance of hate or a sacrament of love.

This is a reminder to me as well to keep faith.  Be patient in trial.  Don't let hateful words thundered from pulpits or over radio waves or on the television; don't let political campaigns and pamphleteering conspiracies to take away our rights and our dignity; don't let those kinds of lies persuade us that we are less than anyone else, that we are not deserving of love or happiness or commitment or faith.  Don't buy the lie.  Be true to what we know and to those around us.  Take care of ourselves.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses...

In the winter of 1988, I was contemplating what to do about my sexuality.  I realized I had a choice.  I could attempt marriage with a woman, hoping that this same-sex attraction thing would fix itself.  I could remain celibate, perhaps for the rest of my life.  Or I could seek a relationship with someone I was more likely to be compatible with -- another gay man like myself.  At the time, all of these choices seemed scary to me.  I seriously investigated all of them.  I investigated choice one by dating women I envisioned relationships to be possible with.  I investigated choice number two by spending a summer in a monastery, and by attending a meeting of Eagle's Wings ministry, a Lutheran "Ex-Gay" ministry based in the Twin Cities and communicating with its coordinators.  I investigated choice number three by cultivating friendships with openly gay men, attending on- and off-campus support groups like the University Gay Community, Lutherans Concerned, Integrity and Dignity.  I also explored the gay bar scene.

No path forward seemed easy or ideal.  The women I dated were nice, but ultimately I literally could not imagine marriage with them as a possibility.  The two women in particular that I was closest to were (are!) beautiful women in every sense of the word: physically attractive, compassionate, intelligent, thoughtful, capable and hard-working.  Yet, I recognized at some very fundamental level that it would be wrong to proceed with marriage...  Even after I came out to each of them, and each of them in turn gave signals that they would be willing to try and see if it could be possible to work things out with me!  I realized at some very fundamental level that to proceed on this basis would be very wrong.  They were attracted to me.  I regarded them as friends, I recognized them to be attractive but I was not attracted to them.  And I recognized that in order for a marriage to work, it would ultimately need more than just a desire to be married to someone of the opposite sex.  It would require the kind of mutuality that could not exist between me and either of them.  Maybe that was hubris on my part.  But it was the truth as I recognized it at that time.

I've written elsewhere in greater depth about my experience at the monastery.  I recognized that this would be a viable path for me.  Certainly, it had the advantage of not yoking myself unequally to another human being whose happiness and welfare would depend in large part on my ability to function in a way I knew I was incapable of functioning.  There, it was more a question of my relationship with God and my own sense of calling.  When, however, at the end of a prayerful and careful discernment process, I realized that I had a different kind of calling from God, I left the monastery.

Eagle's Wings ministry also left me cold for a different reason.  At that time in the late 1980s, people were still talking about "change."  I remember talking to participants in the ministry who frankly confessed that nothing about the ministry had "changed" them.  It's taken me years to understand the nature of the political dynamics that shaped what was going on in the so-called ex-gay ministries.  The heterosexual couple running the ministry were decent, kind, compassionate people who sincerely wanted to help.  They were concerned about homophobia in the Church, which they saw as an obstacle to their ministry.  They recognized, at some level, that change was impossible for most of those who would come to them for help.

But most heterosexuals would never accept a requirement of life-long celibacy for themselves.  So for the majority of heterosexuals, the possibility of change of sexual orientation has to exist.  The level of reflection never went much further than, "Oh, we have ministries to help homosexuals change."  That was the easy, thoughtless answer to a very difficult problem, that excused the average resident of the pews from thinking much more deeply about exactly what they were demanding of gay people.  Whether or not those involved in the so-called "ex-gay" ministries could or would claim to change people was beside the point.  But they had to deal with the unrealistic expectations.  To newcomers like me, it seemed like fraud and hypocrisy.  Now I recognize that was probably unfair.  Though the gap between expectations of ordinary church people and what the situation was on the ground certainly pointed to a larger problem, something the ex-gay ministries were either unwilling or unable to cope with.

I also faced obstacles in the potential quest for a same-sex relationship.  At organizations like Dignity and Lutherans Concerned, I met men mostly 10-20 years older than myself; not anybody I felt compatible with or interested in a relationship with.  At the University Gay Community, on the other hand, I met mostly flighty undergrads who didn't seem too interested in me.  The bars were frightening to me.  Eventually I dated a few other grad students, but dating was difficult when still dealing with internalized homophobia, and the kind of emotional immaturity that comes with only dating for the very first time in your mid-twenties (I had never had a chance to be a teenager!).  I was both fascinated and frightened by the whole same-sex dating thing.

Ultimately, however, my decision to go forward in search of a same-sex relationship regardless of my difficulties and fears had to do with a recognition that this was the only course I could pursue with integrity.

I was brought back to this time in my life by the recent outing of a prominent anti-gay Lutheran minister, the Rev. Tom Brock.  I remember seeing Tom Brock at ELCA Minneapolis Area Synod conventions.  Even then, more than twenty years ago or so, I remember getting what I could only call a "gay vibe" from him.  Maybe it was that he had a tendency to wear trousers that were extremely tight and that accentuated certain parts of his anatomy.  I apologize if this sounds gross and trivial, but I wasn't the only one to notice.  Others, including the Lutheran Campus Minister, noticed and commented on it as well.  Pastor Brock would engage in these anti-gay diatribes over the microphone at Synod convention, but then dress in this immodest way.  It sent mixed messages to say the least.

When the ELCA decided last year to allow openly gay or lesbian individuals in committed relationships to be ordained ministers, Rev. Brock took his congregation out of the ELCA, continuing his anti-gay diatribes over the radio.

His recent outing has sparked the same kind of controversy such actions always spark.  The person doing the outing went undercover to the Catholic-Church-sponsored 12-step group "Courage," apparently following up on a lead that the notorious anti-gay Lutheran minister was himself a closeted homosexual.  Brock was indeed attending the meetings.  The reporter publicized a confidential confession made by Brock at a May 28 meeting of having yielded to homosexual temptation while on a church-sponsored trip to Slovakia.  He also publicized Brock's blaming of his failure on a demonic presence in Slovakia that was supposedly caused by the presence of large numbers of gypsies in that country.

Since the expose this reporter has come under scathing public criticism for violating the confidentiality that all those attending Courage implicitly promise as a condition for attending.  This reporter has publicly justified his actions as appropriate in light of Brock's hypocrisy, in light of his public, anti-gay political agenda pursued while engaging in private, same-sex sexual behavior.

Local gay Lutherans -- including prominent leaders of Lutheran gay-affirming ministries in the Twin Cities -- signed a letter protesting what they regarded as unethical behavior on the part of the reporter who exposed or "outed" Rev. Brock.  The letter called for a compassionate response, expressing condolences and stating that Rev. Brock deserves sympathy and help, not condemnation.

This whole affair hit the local gay media while I was on vacation in Scandinavia.  I learned about it only upon reading the torrent of letters to the editor that were published in the latest issue of Lavendar, the magazine in which the original expose was published.

I felt literally sick to my stomach as I read the letters.  I did feel a terrible kind of empathy for Rev. Tom Brock.  I imagined myself in his shoes.  I imagined the kind of fear that might have driven me to make the kinds of choices he has made in his life that have led to this terrible point.  I remembered that when I first came to know this man, I was still at a point in my life where those choices were very vivid to me.  I might have made a set of choices that could have led to a similar place but did not.  I think my sense of nausea came from my awareness of a man literally in the grasp of demons: blaming demons for his predicament, feeling powerless to resist demonic influence, seeing demons in the faces and bodies of fellow (gypsy) human beings.  Building a life around a series of public lies.  Building a life around hatred and fear, and publicly fanning the flames of both.  The demons were haunting him not just in Slovakia.

Things are often not the way they look on the surface.  But sometimes they are.  Twenty years ago, my perception of the Rev. Tom Brock was that he was a closeted gay man, wrestling with his own demons.  I'd forgotten those perceptions till last night when I read that avalanche of letters to the editor, and then felt a deep sadness.  I realize now, my perception those twenty years ago was spot on.  I was right.  And perhaps I ought to feel satisfaction that the truth has finally found its way out.  But I actually, really, truly don't.  I feel terrible for this man.

I remember back to the choice that I made; the choice that he and I faced at roughly the same moment in history.  Because he surely had a choice back then, didn't he?  I love that scene in the first Lord of the Rings movie where the members of the Fellowship of the Ring are lost in the mines of Moria.  They are at a branch in the tunnel, and the sage Gandalf can't remember which path is the right one.  He finally makes his choice, admitting to Merry that he's still not sure of the way, but explaining that "the air doesn't smell so foul here.  If in doubt... always follow your nose."

 In a way, that's what my choices felt like.  I didn't know the way.  I couldn't possibly know.  But I followed that path that seemed a bit lighter, a bit cleaner, a bit more hopeful, a bit more forgiving, a bit more loving.  And they've led me to this incredible place of blessedness, love, family, hope.

I think I saw clearly twenty years ago, I perceived what was going on.  But I confess that I wasn't sure enough to say that I was going on anything more certain than a smell, than an intuition.  So I don't claim to know a lot more now either.  I don't claim to know what more there may or may not be to understand behind the lurid details of this expose.

But as regards Rev. Brock, I'm aware of a warning from the Spirit, reminding me that my forgiveness, my happiness and blessedness are conditioned upon my willingness to forgive others, to love and hope and pray for others, to regard others' misfortune as my own.  To regard, in some sense, my own salvation as dependent on the salvation of others.  So I pray for Rev. Brock's salvation, as for that of us all.

Spirit and Element, Inseparably Connected, Receive a Fulness of Joy

Latter-day Saints understand that the entire purpose of creation was to enable the spirit children of our Heavenly Parents to progress by receiving physical bodies that some day will be "inseparably connected" with our spirits. (See D&C 93: 33-34 and 138: 17). This is why it is through the gift of procreation that "the earth might answer the end of its creation" (D&C 49: 16). A fundamental task of this life is to perfect the union of spirit and body.

Accounts of the Satanic rebellion against God in Abraham 3: 22-28 and Moses 4: 1-4 add another layer to our understanding of the nature of the trial we face in this life related to achieving the union of spirit and body. Satan told God, "I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it." This, explained God, was an attempt "to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him."

A further layer of understanding is added in the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve. After Satan tempts Eve, and she and her husband partake of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons" (Gen. 3: 7; also Moses 4: 13). God's first question to Adam and Eve in the aftermath of the Fall was related to the primeval shame that followed the partaking of the fruit: "Who told thee that thou wast naked?"

The Book of Revelation describes how, after the Great War in Heaven, Satan "was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (Revelation 12: 9). Revelation describes Satan as "the accuser," which "accused [the righteous] before our God day and night" (vs. 10). He is described as a "persecutor" of the righteous, who "makes war" upon them (vss. 13 & 17). He is able to do this because of great worldly power that is granted him for a time. Something of the power that was granted to Satan is captured in a phrase used by the apostle Paul to describe him: "the god of this world" (2 Corthians 4: 4). Satan is in league with "the rulers," with the "powers and principalities" of this world, with "spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6: 12).

Incredible as it may seem, it was God's plan from the beginning that we be tried in a world in which Satan was not only free to tempt us, but in which Satan, for the most part, rules. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, we who are faithful live, in essence, "behind enemy lines," awaiting the return of Earth's rightful ruler. How can we hope to survive? "By the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of [our] testimony" (Rev. 12: 11). These are our only weapons in this fight.

If Satan is engaged in a war against God in which Earth is temporarily enemy-occupied territory, certainly the stakes of that strife are related to the goal and purpose of mortal existence: the miraculous, powerful, and joyful bond between spirit and flesh, on which eternal "fullness of joy" is predicated.

Fullness of joy comes when body and spirit are in harmony, when neither disregards the needs of the other. In this sense, our bodies and our spirits are entered into a kind of marriage with each other. Actually, I'm convinced that a number of passages in scripture discussing "marriage" relate metaphorically to this union of body and spirit. Certainly, marriage as a literal institution, in which spouses covenant with each other both physically and spiritually, is the perfect expression of the metaphorical "marriage" between body and spirit. The marital relationship demands the same kinds of balance and harmony between physical and spiritual needs that all of us must achieve -- married or not -- in order to achieve the fullness of joy.

In the ancient world, the physical was seen as having feminine qualities and the spiritual was seen as having masculine qualities. Thus, when the apostle Paul, for instance, speaks of the ideal relationship between husband and wife, relating that the wife is to "obey" the husband, while the husband is to "be considerate of" the wife, he is also speaking very aptly of the kind of relationship our spirits ought to have with our bodies. Spiritual requirements must be obeyed, but the spirit cannot exercise tyranny over the body. Rather, it is to nurture, meet the needs of, and strengthen the body. In real marriages of husbands and wives, of course, it is the responsibility of both husband and wife to obey the spirit and nurture the flesh.

I remember as a kid going on a tour in Finland of a Russian Orthodox Museum. There was a section of the museum where implements of torture were on display in some glass cases. I'd heard tales of the Inquisition, and wondered if these were some of the tools of its trade. But there was no Inquisition in Eastern Orthodoxy. No, these implements of torture, I learned to my surprise and horror, were used by Russian monks on themselves. The purpose was to "mortify" or deaden the flesh to any instincts toward (sexual) pleasure. This was a powerful object lesson to me of the extreme antipathy to physicality and sexuality in the European culture of the middle ages -- the culture that, in many ways, was the matrix for modern Western understandings of the world.

To quote The Family Guy, "it seems today that all you see is violence in movies and sex on TV." So we might wonder how our modern culture of sexual permissiveness could possibly be related to the body-hating culture of Europe five hundred years ago. Our culture seems to be the opposite of that one. But in fact, opposites are usually flip sides of the same coin. When we examine the roots of modern pornographic, "anything goes" culture, we see that it emerged as a form of rebellion against body-fearing prudery and repression. Both represent modes of body and spirit relating to each other that are out of harmony.

We still see the imprint of body-denial in the majority of Christian churches, especially those strongly influenced by European culture. We see it in theologies that deny the literalness of the physical resurrection, as well as in the demonization of the flesh. When sexual urges in and of themselves are characterized as evil, we see this in action.

The scriptural texts I discussed at the beginning of this essay give some inkling about the nature of Satanic dominion in the world. Force or coercion, shame, accusation or humiliation, and persecution are clearly identified as tools of Satan. Force is how Satan told God he would rule the world, and now cast out into the world and ruling it as "occupied territory," he has been true to his word. Satan of course does not have dominion over our souls; that's what God prevented in the beginning when he rejected Satan's proposal for achieving salvation; it's what Christ achieved through the atonement ("the blood of the Lamb"). Satan may rule the world, but he cannot rule us against our wills.

It should be evident, when we understand the nature of the bond between body and spirit, why Satan's plan could never work. Force cannot produce harmony. And it is only through harmony that perfect union can work. D&C 121 alludes to this, when it states: "Thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever" (vs. 46). This suggests that what dominion God has over the elements -- and whatever of the nature of God's dominion we are able to achieve -- is based on love, not force. Love is literally the organizing principle of all creation.

Gays and lesbians have been the victims of our culture's sexual repression in a special way. The severing of the harmony between spirit and body has created fundamental anxiety in our culture that causes us to lie to ourselves about the nature of our desire. One manifestation of this is the projecting of one's fears about one's own sexuality on those who are sexually "other." So gay men and lesbians have become a foil for our culture's anxiety about sex. Gay sex, in our sex-hating culture, is the ultimate evil. It's the kind of sex that Satan has and promotes. So no repression of homosexuality is unjustified.

Just by virtue of being gay, we are not immune to this anxiety. In fact, we are more vulnerable to it than people who are not gay. We are vulnerable to this kind of anxiety in exactly the same way that little black children in our culture prefer white dolls over black dolls, because they think that black dolls are "ugly." The culture's projection of us as demonic isn't something that just goes away when we come out. Understanding this is a crucial aspect of the journey each of us must take toward self-knowledge.

That journey, in other words, specifically means wrestling with the cultural lie that we are demons incarnate and not human beings having both spirits and bodies that require the same kinds of harmony that everyone else requires. Our struggle is a special one, because we have to strive to find that balance both in our own psyches as well as in a culture that does everything it can -- that uses every Satanic tool of shame, hate, persecution, humiliation, and coercion -- to keep us unbalanced and use us as scapegoats.

I am now speaking from personal experience, offering the word of my own testimony in regard to my understanding of the nature of the battle. Once I understood this and began to live it, I experienced in unprecedented ways what exactly is meant by those simple words "fullness of joy." I've experienced both kinds of imbalance in my life -- the imbalance of letting one's life be run by one's sex drive, as well as the imbalance of denying any rightful place to the sex drive. The pathway to balance is precarious and frightening. There are demons of all sorts in our way, trying alternatively to frighten and tempt us.

My way through literally has been by "the blood of the Lamb" and by my testimony, which teaches me patience and kindness, beginning with myself and then reaching out toward others.

Celibate

My dictionary defines "celibate" as "abstaining from marriage and sexual relations, typically for religious reasons."

When I was growing up, celibacy was an alien concept in Mormonism. We certainly learned about the "law of chastity," which in the Mormon context meant reserving all sexual expression for marriage. In some contexts, such as the Roman Catholic, chastity has connotations similar to celibacy of total, life-long abstinence from sexual relations, as in the "vows of chastity" taken by the clergy. Mormons use the word "chastity" in a different way from Roman Catholics. But there has traditionally been no place among Mormons for "celibacy," which always been to them an alien and apostate notion. That is, until recently.

The classic Mormon statement on celibacy is found in the D&C, section 49, verse 15: "And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man." It's possible that this revelation, received very early in the history of the Latter-day Church, in 1831, was specifically directed not against Catholics but against Shakers, who at that point in American history, were vigorously proselytizing throughout the northern United States, and had established dynamic and growing communes in upstate New York and in Ohio, in proximity to the gathering centers of early Mormonism. The Shakers, led by Mother Ann Lee, believed that marriage was a sin, and taught that the pathway to God required total celibacy.

Doctrine & Covenants 49 also affirmed that "it is lawful that [man] should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation; And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made" (vss. 16-17). This could also be seen as a strong repudiation of the doctrines taught by the Shakers, since the Shakers believed that universal celibacy was necessary to restore the earth to the paradisaical state that existed before the fall of Adam and Eve. The Shakers believed that the fall literally consisted of sex, and so in order to undo the fall, humankind must stop having sex. Mormons of course had a very different view of the fall: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." D&C 49 affirmed that far from being a sin, marriage and procreation "answered the end of creation," that it was part of a purpose that was established "before the world was made."

This doctrine was elaborated upon through a later revelation received by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, in July 1843, D&C section 132 on the "new and everlasting covenant of marriage." In this section of the D&C, which was not made public for some years after it was received, the practice of plural marriage was explained, and the doctrine of "eternal marriage" was revealed. Here, not only was it wrong to teach celibacy, but singleness was described as a form of damnation. Those who do not marry in this life are destined in the next life to "remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity." They "cannot be enlarged" and "henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever," as "ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory" (vss. 16-17).

That's heavy. Especially in light of the fact that since 2006, official statements and publications of the Church in relation to the issue of homosexuality are now stressing that individuals with same-sex attraction are not to marry, unless they feel a "great attraction" to the individual of the opposite sex whom they are marrying.

The role of singles in the Church has always created a challenge for LDS communities, specifically because of the doctrine found in D&C 132. Apart from the Manifesto officially ending the practice of polygamy, there has been no revelation significantly modifying the teachings of D&C 132 since it was first promulgated. And this has been a heavy burden for all those who -- for whatever reason -- have found it impossible to marry in the temple.

The principle of vicarious ordinance work does present a potential loophole which has been unofficially exploited by LDS leaders as well as rank-and-file faithful to at least give some hope and comfort to the "singles" of the Church. After all, it is painful enough to have to live singly in this life -- especially in a culture where everything seems to revolve around coupling and having families. To be told that as a consequence of being unable to marry, you will suffer singleness not only here in this life but for all eternity, to many that's a burden that seems almost incapable of being born. It is natural, I think, to want to offer some hope, so many faithful Latter-day Saints have adopted the belief that those who are unable to find a mate in this life will be provided the opportunity to find and marry an eternal mate in the next life.

There is, of course, no scriptural basis for this belief, which is rapidly becoming so widespread among LDS faithful as to have risen to quasi official status. This belief becomes logically almost impossible to resist, given the Church's official position on homosexuality, because otherwise it just does not seem fair, and Latter-day Saints believe in a God who is perfectly fair. But in fact, D&C 132 specifically teaches against a belief in post mortal marriage. D&C 132 is unequivocal that these marital contracts are contracts that must be entered into "in the world." If you marry any other way "in the world" or if you do not marry in this way "in the world," the conditions are spelled out. You will remain "separately and singly" in the next world. (See especially verses 13, 15 and 22-23.) In fact, D&C 132 could be seen as an extended elaboration upon the biblical principle: "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30 and Mark 12:25). D&C 132:16 affirms this as an absolute principle. In the next life, there is no marrying or giving in marriage. That's why we have eternal marriage in temples in the world.

So if you are gay, or handicapped in such a way as to preclude marriage, or divorced, or just a good, old-fashioned life-long bachelor or "spinster," the best you can hope for -- at least in so far as is spelled out in D&C 132 -- is eternal servanthood. Seemingly as if to rub salt into the wounds of all of us who find ourselves in any of these situations through no fault of our own, D&C 132: 22-23 concludes, "For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it."

Now I have a testimony of the Church, and I also have a testimony of these teachings. I do not reject them. I have no basis for rejecting them. I realize at some intellectual level that these teachings should fill me with despair, and at some point in my journey of faith they did just that. In fact, this doctrinal problem was at the heart of the despair that nearly led me to take my own life in 1986. But somehow I've come through the other side of despair, doubt, anger, and rejection and found what I can only describe as perfect hope and joy, grounded in the personal reassurances I've received through the Spirit that I am OK, that there is nothing wrong with me in my created being, and that everything will work out for me not only in this life but in eternity. I don't know how things will work out for me (or others in my situation), but I know they will.

Those of us who are faithful LDS and non-temple-married will each have to make our own peace with this teaching in our own way. Some of us can and do reject the doctrine itself as simply out of harmony with what we know or believe of the love, justice and mercy of God. Of course LDS doctrine related to marriage has become so important in LDS community and LDS culture that it's hard to reject this doctrine piecemeal. Many of us have rejected the Church in its entirety over this doctrine.

I don't have a problem with the belief that those not given an opportunity to find a mate in this life will be offered that chance in the next one. There's no scriptural basis for it... yet. That tiny word "yet" can be pregnant with hope in a Church that sees continuing revelation at the core of its reason for existing.

A long time ago, Chedner wrote an essay describing how he came to terms with this doctrine by making peace with eternal servanthood. I have always remembered that essay. (I can't provide the link, because it was a LONG time ago and I don't have the patience to go searching for it. Though I'll post a link here if Chedner is so kind as to provide it.) Of all the ways of finding hope, that resonates best with me. I like it not just because it is scriptural, but because of the movement of soul that is required to accept this as a form of hope. To give up desire for glory and dominion and to choose instead the way of selfless love and service is the heart of the gospel way. It is, without question, the way Christ himself walked -- whether or not Christ himself married in this life. It is not just "a" scriptural way of finding hope, it is "the" scriptural way.

In my last post I described a spiritual path that gay Saints may follow, that leads from despair to self-knowledge, from self-knowledge to self-love, and finally from self-love to unconditional love of others, which will enable us to fully realize Zion, the highest aspiration of our religion. I suggested that the "self-love" stage "includes acceptance of our limitations and recognition that it is legitimate for us to seek to meet the basic human need for intimacy and relationship." I think it is worthwhile to reflect on the meaning of celibacy in relation to that statement, because I do see celibacy as a potentially faithful and enriching spiritual path, one that can lead us to the end goal of Zion.

Celibacy will fail as a spiritual path if it is not grounded in healthy self-love and in a belief in the legitimate right each of us has to establish intimate relationships according to our ability. If our celibacy is based upon fear of our sexuality, or is grounded in some sense that we are inferior in our created selves or not deserving of an intimate relationship just like everyone else, those reasons for entering into a celibate path will gnaw at our souls until they destroy us. In this I must wholeheartedly second the words of D&C 49:15: "Whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God."

The Church has officially enjoined gay men and lesbians without some significant level of bisexuality to live lives of celibacy. In terms of purely practical considerations -- in comparison with the old policy of encouraging people to simply ignore their same-sex attraction and get married to a member of the opposite sex -- this is a huge step forward, if only because it does not encourage the creation of unions that for the most part, result in tremendous, destructive heartache and loss of faith. It has a second, spiritual benefit, of giving gay men and lesbians time to think about their choices in terms of relationships and sexuality. If we are in doubt about our path, it is good to avoid making indelible commitments until we are sure. So celibacy can give us time and space -- either to discern whether we feel called to the celibate life, or to prepare for a relationship. I was celibate until the age of 24, and it didn't kill me.

If life-long celibacy is chosen, not out of fear of sex or fear of damnation, but out of a desire for service; if celibacy becomes an expression of self-love that then turns outward toward using all of one's time and energy and gifts for helping others; then it can and will save not only us but others. It can allow us be "ministering angels" in this life, it can enable us to serve in the way Christ served, and to receive all the unfathomable joy that can come with that.

Unnatural Relationships

OK, here's what I hope for.

I hope for discussions about attraction and relationships involving gay men in same-sex relationships and gay men in mixed orientation marriages not to be carried on as if marriage were a zero-sum game. As if what gay men in same-sex marriages win, gay men in mixed-orientation marriages (and their wives) lose, and vice versa.

There's a dynamic that always goes on in discussions about same-sex marriage. Sometimes it's at the fore, sometimes it's the unspoken elephant in the room. On the one hand, discussions of desire and nature seem to come with the implication that mixed orientation marriages shouldn't exist or are doomed. On the other hand, discussions of choice and change seem to come with the implication that same-sex marriages are unfaithful or selfish.

I notice when some of these discussions take place, there are quiet calculations taking place in the background. Someone shares his or her experience, and others listening in are trying to figure out whether that person's experience adds to or subtracts from their commitments. The happiness of a gay man in a same-sex relationship is taken as implying that a gay man in an opposite-sex relationship is hard-wired to be unhappy with a woman. In defense, people start piling in and testifying that God condemns same-sex relationships; and same-sex relationships just don't last. The happiness of a gay man in a mixed-orientation marriage is taken as implying that a gay man in a same-sex relationship was too weak or selfish to have made the morally superior choice of marrying a woman. In defense, people start piling in and testifying that people in mixed orientation marriages won't ever get their needs met; and mixed orientation marriages just don't last. And so on and so on, around and around it goes.

But relationships are not mathematical equations. They are living organisms with histories and habitats that are utterly unique. One of the things that often delights me about relationship stories is hearing how two people met. So often there's an element of serendipity involved, a chance encounter or some unusual introduction or something out of the ordinary that takes two people out of the usual course of their life and throws them together in some way that makes them take notice of each other in a new light. I've so often heard a couple tell, with knowing smiles, how "if it hadn't been for so-and-so, we never would have met."

And if the account of the encounter has interesting twists and turns, so much more the tale of the subsequent relationship. The longer a relationship lasts, the more choices an individual makes in the framework of that relationship; choices that determine not only whether or how that relationship can last, but the whole texture and character and personality of that relationship. And what is even more miraculous is that there is not one but two people making choices; often very, very different choices in the same relationship. At any point, any one member of the relationship could make a choice that causes a terminal divergence, bringing the relationship to an end. A relationship only lasts when two people both make choices that somehow converge, that somehow always lead back to the other. Like a dance.

Like a dance, each partner responds to the moves of the other. A change of rhythm or the introduction of new moves might confuse a partner for a moment, but that partner can always choose to adjust their own moves, matching their partner and coming back into sync. Or they might introduce some new moves of their own, challenging their partner to respond, forcing their partner to decide how or whether they want to keep dancing. I've been on many dance floors with my partner, but I've never been part of a dance where every couple had the exact same moves. I've never seen a dancer respond to a new rhythm in exactly the same way as any other dancer.

So a gay man comes out to his wife. New move, new rhythm. Some wives will follow, some won't. Sometimes that dance ends, and starts again with new partners. If the dance continues, the wife may make certain accommodations and certain demands. New move, new rhythm. Some gay men will follow, some won't. Sometimes the dance ends, and starts again with new partners. Sometimes the dance continues, with new levels and kinds of interaction and satisfaction for the partners.

The particularity of the moves in a mixed orientation marriage are different from the kinds of moves you typically see in a heterosexual marriage or in a gay marriage. Gay marriages have particular moves that you don't see in heterosexual or mixed orientation marriages. Heck, lesbian marriages have different moves from gay male marriages. But the fact of moving is the same in every relationship.

Why do two partners end up together? And why do they stay together? The answer is unique in every relationship. I hear the repeated refrain from gay men in mixed orientation marriages that they never had the experience of "falling in love." That really only gets disconcerting when they compare their moves to someone else's. But the only thing that's really important at any given moment is that you are in the dance, not necessarily how you got to this point in the dance.

Gay men in same-sex relationships have historically been told that their relationships are "unnatural." As our understanding of the nature of sexual orientation has evolved, gay men in mixed-orientation relationships increasingly find themselves being told that they are the ones in "unnatural" relationships.

But the truth is that every relationship is unnatural in the sense that relationships don't last unless two people are willing to put effort into them. No relationship just happens. It has a history that makes it unique -- a history that may have analogues in other people's lives, but that is actually unrepeated and unrepeatable anywhere else, with anyone else.

Every relationship is also natural in the sense that human beings are social creatures. Every relationship comes into being both through choice and desire. Every relationship meets needs. Every relationship fulfills some needs better than other needs, and each relationship has different proficiencies in terms of the kinds of needs it meets. That works, because every individual in a relationship has different needs.

I can't imagine being in a mixed orientation marriage. At one point, I considered the possibility very seriously, and even went through a period of fasting and prayer to discern whether I should seek to marry a woman. The result of that fasting and prayer and discernment led me to conclude that that would be a very bad choice for me. I made decisions that ultimately led to my relationship of more than 17 years with my honey pie, Göran. Looking back, there are things I might have done differently, but in terms of the grand story arc, I am incredibly grateful that I made the choices I did that led us together and made a couple of us. My relationship with him is the single greatest blessing in my life, after my relationship with God and my testimony of the gospel. When I contemplate the choices of folks like Bravone or Scott or Beck, they look impossible to me. I get a headache trying to imagine myself in their shoes.

But that doesn't make the choices they've made invalid. Nor does it make their relationships more or less deserving of happiness and success, nor more or less capable of achieving happiness and success. Nor should their happiness and success be taken as some kind of proof that I should have made different choices, that my relationship with Göran is somehow sinful or selfish or wrong. Nor should their success be used as ammunition for legal campaigns that deny me and my honey the protections of marriage.

I wish we could get that kind of stuff out of our system. Because there is value in comparing notes. We do learn from hearing how others made the choices they've made, where those choices led, and what it has meant to them to do what they've done.

Sometimes, the problem doesn't come from others trying to undermine us. Sometimes the problem comes from our own insecurities and fears. We hear what someone else has to say, and all our anxieties about our own relationship come to the fore and make it impossible for us to hear what they're actually trying to say. We need to get spiritually centered, find a way not only of speaking but hearing without fear.

This is difficult because we live in a culture that has turned these kinds of discussions into a political, social, spiritual, religious, and legal minefield. There's always somebody ready to turn somebody else's life into a political or theological argument; or perhaps we too readily indulge the temptation to make an argument of our own lives. It's disrespectful, it's painful, and it's terrible. To do so totally violates the sanctity of human life, human freedom, and human relationships. And it leaves us living in fear, and alienates us from one another when we ought to be living in love, and helping lift one another's burdens.

Any ideas how get through the minefield intact?

On the Nature of Fornication

Every once in a while, I check my sitemeter to see which posts of mine continue to attract readers long after I originally published them. A fairly popular one appears to be my dream post of March 26, 2009, The Gay Whore of Babylon. Recently, an anonymous commenter, after explaining to me that my relationship with my husband is essentially an unnatural, "deadly... addiction," advised me, "Heed those warnings in your dreams." I assume this person was referring to my Whore of Babylon dream.

From the moment I clicked "publish" on that post, I suspected it would be susceptible to certain kinds of misinterpretation, and might encourage a certain type of panicky response. But I published it anyway for two reasons. First of all, because I am a believer in "letting the chips fall where they may." In my spiritual journey of recent years, when I have let go of outcomes and focussed more on process, when I have followed spiritual promptings and listened to my heart, without worrying where they would lead, I have been blessed. I have learned things I never would have learned otherwise, and my life has been enriched immeasurably. My Gay Whore of Babylon dream was one of those very significant dreams, and it contained multiple, very powerful messages about sexuality and integrity and community. Even though some of the symbolism was troubling, I needed to wrestle with it, and I felt it was worth wrestling with it in a communal way (thus posting it on my blog), let the chips fall where they may.

The second reason I published it -- despite some of my reservations -- was because, having wrestled with it and discerned some of the meanings embedded in it, I felt it posed questions worth discussing on my blog about the nature of fornication.

If fornication is a sin -- and I believe it is -- then why is it a sin? One way to look at this is to consider how we generally respond to fornication as sin. If a couple is fornicating, we generally expect rectification in one of two ways. Either we expect the physical relationship to end. Stop the sex. Or we expect the couple to formalize their relationship by getting married. Keep the sex coming, but add something to it, namely the spiritual and social commitments entailed by marriage.

Why? Because human beings are more than just a jumble of random urges. We are souls striving for integrity and harmony. We are spiritual beings with physical bodies. Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland once discussed sexuality within the bonds of marriage as a kind of sacrament. A sacrament is typically defined as "an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual divine grace." Thus, when the act of physical love is a sign of spiritual, divine love, it is in fact a sacrament. Fornication is an act that denies and violates the spiritual dimensions of the act of physical love.

I once heard a speaker mock Elder Holland's equation of marital sex and sacrament in crude and graphic terms, and I wept. I felt violated by the mockery. It was an assault on my sense of integrity, on my sense of the unity of every sacred aspect of myself, physical, spiritual, and relational. Fornication is wrong for the same reasons that the mockery was wrong. Because it tears asunder the integrity between between body and spirit without which the fullest and finest expressions of our humanity are not possible.

My Gay Whore of Babylon dream spoke to a particular, historically contingent problem related to how the gay community in America has evolved. It also spoke to a way in which the gay community participates the fallen condition of American culture generally. For historical reasons I could discuss in considerably more depth, in the 1960s the gay community and the gay rights movement by and large hitched their fortunes to the philosophy of "sexual liberation." Sexual liberation explicitly disconnects sexuality and sexual expression from any affective, relational or spiritual context. It ultimately denies the reality of the non-physical, and denies the validity of any meaning connected to sex apart from simple physical gratification. Sex is a powerful thing. Having experimented with the idea of sexual liberation, I can attest that because of the power of sex, sexual liberation can feel liberating -- at first. But ultimately it's not any sort of liberation at all. It eventually becomes a form of slavery, condemning us to an impoverished existence, and stripping our lives of humanity and meaning.

I believe that the growth in recent decades of gay community organizations devoted to religion and spirituality attests at least in part to lessons learned the hard way. But I believe the single most significant historical development in terms of the gay community's self-understanding, and its communal approach to the problem of how the spiritual and the physical are related is to be found in the movement for full marriage equality. Many conservatives have acted as if the gay community's agenda was to impoverish marriage. But from the gay community's perspective, this has always been about enrichment not impoverishment, about humanity and integrity and love. Marriage, for us, is and always has been about joining together what no man (or woman) should put asunder. It is about creating that very human union of body and spirit, and of two into one.

We are told that it is impossible for two men or two women to create that kind of union. But gay men and lesbians who have taken the risk to invest in relationships know differently. Our humanity and the integrity of our spirits and bodies, and the kinds of fulfillment we can and do find in intimate relationships are testimony that two men and two women can and do create that kind of union, whether our heterosexual family and friends are willing to believe in it or not. And we are equally hurt by the failure to respect that integrity, whether the failure comes in the form of our own sexual infidelity toward each other, or whether it comes in the form of the broader society's faithlessness toward us.

The scriptures frequently use fornication as a metaphor for humanity's unfaithfulness to God. That unfaithfulness, to read and understand the scriptural testimony, has come primarily in the form of the idolatry of wealth and materialism; in the form of the exploitation of the poor, disregard for widows and orphans, and violent oppression of the stranger. To deny the humanity of our fellow human beings is an estrangement from our own humanity and from God. Thus, fornication is an apt metaphor for the great social "sins of the ages": pride and hate.

My Gay Whore of Babylon dream gave me a metaphorical handle on this nature of the human predicament -- both in terms of our individual, familial relationships, and in terms of the larger social contract in which all of us are called to participate. The dream sharpened my sense that the gay community is urgently in need of seeking out and developing the spiritual aspects of life. We must reject the soulless materialism that is endemic in American culture. If we would be saved, we must reject Babylon and all its ways.

Despite the fact that the Gay Whore of Babylon post still routinely garners readers nine months after I posted it, I have yet to receive a single substantive comment on either the imagery or the message of the dream. (One friend simply responded by commenting that I had "vivid" dreams!) Perhaps this is because the imagery of the dream -- on the surface at least -- lends itself to extreme homophobic interpretations (thus the recent "warning" from an anonymous, homophobic commenter on my blog to "heed" the dream). But perhaps it is also because, despite the fact that our culture constantly exploits sex in order to attract spectators and sell merchandise, we generally can't muster the ability to talk rationally, to reason about sex. And if we can't do that, we can't fully integrate ourselves as sexual, physical, rational, emotional, spiritual beings. We will continue to respond to sex in ways that are merely primal -- with raw hunger or superstitious anxiety.

Does Being in a Gay Relationship Make One Happy? Does Gay Love Qualify as Love?

I just finished reading Ty Mansfield's essay in the North Star newsletter, "Happiness and the Art of Loving." I encourage all to read it. Gay or straight, Mormon or not, there's much there to think about and be blessed by.

It's odd because just this morning, after my alarm clock went off and as I was shaking sleep out of my head in preparation for a new day, a scriptural text was jangling around in my brain: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy." Coincidentally or not, I was still pondering how I might use this Book of Mormon text (from 2 Nephi 2:25) to illustrate to my American Religious History students a fundamental difference between Mormon theology and Nicene Christian theology, when I happened upon Ty's essay, which is essentially his own wrestling with the implications of this text for gay Mormons.

Ty is right that there are plenty of cultural counterfeits of happiness and love. America will sell you for any price all kinds of shiny junk -- from toothpaste to automobiles to psychic readings to cures for baldness to weight loss plans to "e-Harmony" matches -- which it claims will make you happy, but in fact mostly only leave you feeling cheated. And nobody with a reasonable amount of sense can deny the existence of abundant Hollywood-inspired confusion of sex and love. At the same time, it should be pointed out that most of the quotes Ty amassed to suggest that true happiness and love are not for those in same-sex committed relationships, were written by straight people to people for whom straight relationships were taken for granted.

In other words, a straight person can fall into the trap of seeking happiness in urge fulfillment and love in sex in the context of a straight relationship. In other words, isn't it possible that the Gospel calls all of us -- gay and straight -- into a deeper understanding of just what "joy" and "love" are without assuming that celibacy is necessary in order to obtain either? I hasten to add, if celibacy is not necessary to obtain joy and love, neither is intimate relationship necessary. But intimate relationship is an important framework -- if not the only framework! -- within which ordinary human beings wrestle with the painful (and joyful!) life lessons that help us sort out exactly what true joy and true love are.

This has certainly been the case in my relationship with Göran, and it has been vividly illustrated to me again and again in connection with raising a teenage son. A teenage boy is just coming into a full experience of the million hungers that tug at the human creature; and the million temptations in a society where counterfeit moralities are a dime a dozen. Things that seem self-evident to me, a 45-year-old man with at least three decades of hindsight on the whole teenage-hood thing, seem crazy to our son. I find myself giving the same speeches my father gave me. Speeches on what does and does not make for joy; what is or is not true love. Things I have learned within the framework of a same-sex relationship!

The Mormon understanding of "joy" embroidered into that 2 Nephi text about the fall of Adam (and into so many other texts of the Restoration) is powerful precisely because it rejects the dominant Western Christian view of incarnation and embodiment as a kind of temporary prison from which the Christian should seek to escape. Joy in this Mormon understanding is not found apart from that perfect union of spirit and body; a joy in which physical joy is not at odds with but a fundamental component of perfect spiritual joy.

So Ty's argument boils down to the contention that homosexuality is a violation of God's commandments. Ergo, a gay relationship can only offer counterfeits of joy and love. The Moho blogging community expends much more energy than it should bickering over that contention, and it's not my intention here to bicker with Ty. One way to look at our lives as gay Mormons is to see them as various attempts to test the truth or falsehood of that contention, from differing perspectives. Some of us test it in mixed orientation marriages; some of us test it in celibacy; some of us test it in the always risky attempt to find some sort of lasting same-sex love.

This essay -- and other essays I've read in the Moho blogging world lately on the subject of "happiness" -- seem to be a wrestling with the evidence of these experiments. If "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10), what do we make of the seeming happiness of gay-ly married couples? Of the seeming unhappiness of straight couples?

Though I've been celibate for a good part of my life, I've never been married to a woman, so I can't compare the joy of hetero-marriage to the joy of my homo-marriage. I can't be in somebody else's skin, I can't really walk in someone else's moccasins for a mile, much less one footstep. So is L's happiness in marriage better than mine? I'm not sure I can ever know unless eternity holds the possibility of a different kind of communion than is available to us here in this life. But part of me is not sure that kind of communion will ever be possible. Part of me is not sure that my happiness is for anybody but me to know; that L's happiness is for anybody but him to know.

What I do know is that yesterday, my husband and my son attended church with me in my ward for the first time ever, and their presence there was blessed with an unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit. Last night and this morning again, I found myself on my knees weeping for pure joy. With King Benjamin, I found myself confessing once again to my Heavenly Father that I am hopelessly, utterly dependent on him, unable ever to say I stand on my own two feet apart from him, because every time I try to thank him with more obedience, he over-blesses me again. Again and again, I encounter new days where the joy seems like it could never be surpassed, until more comes along.

That ever-increasing perfection of joy has come in large part because I have listened to the Spirit and obeyed its admonitions to walk in a path of faith and repentance with the Church -- even as the Church seems unable to embrace me or to know what to make of me. It has come in acknowledging the demands of the spirit (and the Spirit) as well as the flesh.

What does that mean to anybody else but me? I don't know. But I wish you joy and love in the journey.

Promiscuity

I first started to date men in the fall of 1988. This was after I had spent a summer in a Roman Catholic monastery, exploring celibacy as a life calling, and after much fasting, prayer, and discernment, I had come to the conclusion that celibacy was not my calling. I had had a very important spiritual experience during my coming out process, in which I had been praying for God to help me discern whether I should seek to marry a woman, or whether I should live a life of celibacy, and the Spirit said very clearly to me: "Be open to all the possibilities." So after ruling marriage out and exploring celibacy, I felt free to explore the possibility of a relationship with a man.

I was 25 years old, and had never really dated. Not really. I had gone on dates with women, but those dates had been infrequent, and I had never dated anyone I was interested in having anything more than a casual friendship with. When I opened myself to the possibility of a relationship with a man, I suddenly found this huge reservoir of emotion bursting forth: excitement, eagerness, anxiety, fear, relief, longing. Whereas I had always been a casual, uninterested participant in dating with women, now I felt I had a huge investment. Now I had a potential to enter into something that would have huge personal significance.

I began with the idea that I was going to find "Mr. Right," and enter into a life-long, monogamous commitment with him. At the same time, I had no idea practically how to do that.

The first gay groups I got involved in were the various religious groups -- Lutherans Concerned, Dignity (Catholics) and Integrity (Episcopalians). But most of the participants in these groups tended to be older men, men I wasn't so attracted to. I also got involved in the University Gay Community, the group for gay men at the University of Minnesota. But most of these men were 4-8 years younger than I was -- not an age difference that seems like much to me now, but then seemed huge. In most significant ways, these guys were much less mature than I was. But they were also much more sophisticated than I was when it came to dating and relating to other gay men. I guess it would be generous to say that I was introverted, intimidated, and socially awkward in that setting, and found it extremely painful to try to meet men I might date there.

My first real gay friend was involved in none of these groups. I had met him at Lutheran Campus Ministry, though he was only marginally involved in this group. His approach to gay dating was: Cruise the gay bars downtown, find a man you think is hot, and convince him to take you home with him and have sex. If the two of you manage to go on a second date, you're on your way to a relationship! Most of the time, a second date never materialized. There were an awful lot of guys in that scene who considered love or commitment the ultimate turn-off. My friend Paul frequently took me with him out to the bars, and I watched this activity going on all around me, though I couldn't bring myself to participate in it... at first.

One of the problems I was encountering as I began the painful process of going on my first dates was the almost universal expectation that sex would happen very early in the dating process; most often on the first or second date. I had assumed -- from my limited heterosexual dating experience -- that sex would happen only after we had gotten to know each other very well and felt almost certain that we wanted a committed, monogamous relationship with each other. I discovered that, in the words of one friend, "Having sex is to gay men what sniffing butts is to dogs." I realized that if I said no to sex, I risked giving the impression that I was not really interested in dating, no matter how much I protested to the contrary.

I also found that my moral framework for resisting this kind of behavior was seriously eroded by a couple of basic facts.

Basic Fact Number One: getting married is not an option. How does this erode the moral framework for resisting promiscuity? Because marriage gives you a specific, concrete, publicly, commonly acknowledged boundary inside of which sexual activity is blessed, and outside of which sexual activity is frowned upon. Marriage is a solemn commitment you enter into with the intention to make it last. It is a moment when both partners clearly and publicly define their relationship to each other, and to all their gathered friends and families. If marriage is not an option, then how do you know when a relationship is serious enough for sex? Determining that becomes a much more slippery process, much more susceptible to rationalization.

Basic Fact Number Two: homosexuality is considered beyond the moral pale. When you come from a background where no homosexual behavior is ever considered moral no matter what the context, then you are left with the corollary that all homosexual behavior is equally immoral (or moral). Once you get to the point where you are open to considering a same-sex relationship, it is easy to find yourself questioning whether any norms of sexual morality apply to you any more. If the Church was wrong about being gay, why wouldn't it be wrong about sex and marriage? (Oh, yeah, we can't get married anyway.) Why wouldn't it be wrong about monogamy? (Oh yeah, the Church used to believe in polygamy.) It's easy to sink into extreme cynicism and moral relativism. It's easy to convince yourself, or allow yourself to be convinced, that nothing is wrong any more.

Then you enter a scene where that "nothing-is-wrong" notion is the operative assumption, and you start to feel that if you want any chance at happiness, you pretty much have to accept those terms. Or let me own it, that is how I came to feel. I accepted those terms.

I think at the beginning my approach was something like this: you want a relationship with a man. The circumstances under which you have the possibility of getting one aren't ideal. But you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs; you can't plant a garden without getting your hands dirty. So just take the plunge. Live life. There was a great quote by Martin Luther that I loved: "Sin boldly!" The idea was, if you are constantly worried about being perfect, you cannot live. You will hide in a corner your whole life trying to avoid mistakes, when you should be out living. Accept that you will make mistakes. Learn from them. Move on. The chance at finding love is worth it.

So I did. I started dating. I had sex. I enjoyed myself. And then love struck.

I met a guy through the University Gay Community, actually. He was a grad student like myself. We were a similar age, at a similar place in our coming out processes. He was gorgeous. He was intellectual. He was an activist. He was perfect. I fell hard. We started dating. We had sex on our second date, and the sex was incredible. Sex with him was always incredible, a transcendent experience for me. And I was convinced I had found the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I only gradually realized, when we met he was sort of rebounding from a break-up with some guy named Daniel. In the course of our relationship, he would bounce back and forth between ecstasy that I was the true love of his life, and being wobbly and uncertain and stand-offish. Finally, he called it quits. He told me the relationship was over. "We can still be friends," he told me.

I was shattered. I was so sure this was the one. For the first day after the break-up, I was in shock. I literally couldn't stop crying. I showed up at work at the University Archives, and then I hid back in the stacks where no one could see me, the tears running down my face. I ended up having to go home early. I think I was still in some form of mourning for at least a month.

Gradually I got over it. But before I had really gotten over it, I was already back in the dating scene. I could find another Mr. Right, I thought. And find him I did... I thought. But then I had my second Mr. Right break up with me. Then I started dating another Mr. Right. But eventually he broke up with me too.

When the third Mr. Right broke up with me, he told me that he didn't really believe in relationships. He thought there were really great (non-sexual) friendships, which could last a life-time, and then there was sex, which you got wherever you could find it. But you didn't expect anything from sexual partners but sex. He didn't want anything more from me than that. My interest in a commitment left him feeling trapped. He wanted the relationship to end before it got too serious.

That shattered me in a different way. At that point, I was losing not just a boyfriend, not just a relationship. I was losing faith that it might ever be possible for me to find a relationship that I could fashion into the great love of my life, into a life-long commitment.

Following that break-up, I met Göran, the great love of my life.

Though at that point I did not know it yet. When I met Göran I was completely jaded about relationships. Göran and I dated for about a month, and then I broke up with him, using the same shallow lines that had been used on me in my last break-up. I didn't feel I really wanted a commitment. I just wanted friendships. Sex was something you did to satisfy a hunger, to fill an ephemeral need, that's all. You shouldn't invest yourself in it really, any more than you'd invest yourself in the hamburger you're going to eat for dinner. That was really how I'd come to feel.

For about a year following my break-up with Göran, I lived my life very promiscuously. There were a lot of one night stands. I met men anonymously at gay beaches and t-rooms and at the gym and in cruisy parts of town.

I'd like to say I was terribly unhappy, but I was not. I was actually fairly contented with my life because I had lowered my expectations to match what I was getting out of life. "Oh, so this is as good as it gets. Oh well. I can live with this."

And then I met Göran again. And at the point in my life where I met him again, I realized that in fact I could enter a relationship with him, and that maybe that relationship could be a good thing. I could do with it, I could do without it, I thought. I didn't need it. But it could be a good thing. So we started going steady. And going steady evolved into moving into an apartment together. And then one day in August of 1995, we got married. Göran had this crazy notion that had just not entered into my thick Mormon skull that it didn't matter that we couldn't get legally married, what mattered was our commitment to each other. I was skeptical about the benefits of that corrupt heterosexual institution. But once we actually went through the ceremony, I can say there was a tangible difference in the quality of our relationship. It really did matter. It really made a difference.

Almost immediately after Göran and I had made some sort of commitment to each other, I realized how being in a relationship that truly works, where there is true love and reciprocity and sharing and commitment, is infinitely more joyful than the rootless, promiscuous lifestyle I had once settled for. What I did not realize was the depth of joy that could become possible in this relationship. That has taken me much work and many years to fully appreciate.

I realized that I had settled for a lie in accepting a promiscuous life-style, a lie that I told myself to mask the pain I had experienced when earlier relationships had not worked out. What I also realized is that the promiscuity was damaging in fundamental ways I had never anticipated it would be. It created patterns of thought and behavior that caused real problems in my relationship with Göran. To his credit, his love for me was greater than those problems. We have worked through those issues together, and I gradually began to discover the true joys of commitment. Repentance is possible. There is grace and atonement. My loving partner has taught me that.

Then came the call of the Spirit. Since returning to the Church, the Spirit has essentially said to me: "You have found a good way. Now let me teach you a better way." Like the moon is brighter than the stars, my relationship with Göran was more joyful than the promiscuous lifestyle I had once lived. But as I have recommitted myself to apply the principles of chastity in thought and in my heart, as I have set pornography aside and guarded my heart and sought to practice restraint, and given myself completely to Göran, the glory of our relationship now to the way our relationship once was is like the light of the sun is to the light of the moon. I anticipate that our future will only continue to grow and deepen and get better and more glorious in every way imaginable.

I'm inclined to say that sex is a good thing. It is an inherent, intrinsic good, and when we enjoy it even under circumstances that are not ideal, it is still a gift of God. But the goodness of it can be relative. And it is worthwhile to strive to experience it and appreciate it under circumstances that afford us the greatest possible good.

In October 2006 I spoke on a panel at the Affirmation Convention in Portland. I spoke about these experiences. One of the participants raised his hand and expressed frustration that, in entering the dating scene, he was discovering the same problems that I had experienced years ago in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He wanted to date in a more restrained, ethical manner. But he just didn't know how to do that. There are so few in the gay community at large who share those kinds of values. And if he limited himself to those who did share those values, his choices would be impossibly limited.

I didn't have much good advice to give him. I could hardly point to my own life as exemplary. In many ways, I feel as if my happiness is the result of dumb luck. I often behaved in ways that were almost calculated to deprive me of any happiness at all. Sometimes I feel I do not deserve to be happy. Yet here I am, happier than I could ever have imagined I would be.

But I've had time to re-think my answer to this question. I think we can hold on to our values, I think we can keep a moral compass. I think we do have to live life. We have to be OK with making mistakes. And if you are a gay man, you may find you have to seek a relationship under circumstances that are not ideal. But we still need to remind ourselves that accepting non-ideal circumstances is not the same thing as saying that our values don't matter, or that all behavior is morally equivalent. And there are certain places we just shouldn't go and that we don't need to go. How to navigate these waters is not easy. Each of us will have hard choices to make that ultimately we alone bear the responsibility for. I have learned this the hard way.

I realize that I went an extreme route in some ways. Not everyone experiments or explores their sexuality to the extent or in the way I did. Again, I feel lucky. Dumb, undeserved luck. Some people go that route and they don't make it back. When General Authorities warn against behavior that is immoral, this is incredibly wise advice that we should seek prayerfully to implement as best we can. I have lived to experience deep sorrow for the things I did. I do not believe promiscuous behavior to be "victimless." It hurt me and it hurt others. It was not necessary for me to learn in this way. This is one reason I have become a firm advocate for same-sex marriage and for developing broader social support and role models for gay men to build relationships in healthy ways that respect ourselves, respect our bodies, and respect our sexuality. Mohohawaii has posted some good advice on his site for gay men considering dating other men. We need more discussions about this that acknowledge the good, the bad and the ugly, and always take us closer to the good.

Religious opposition to social supports like same-sex marriage I feel to be terribly, profoundly misguided. Such opposition contributes to the moral anomie that is destroying the lives of many, many gay men. Promiscuity does not serve God's purposes. It desensitizes us, it erodes our capacity for genuine love. It cuts us off from the Spirit. It dehumanizes us. This serves Satan's purposes, not God's. The people of God should support anything that helps put safeguards in place and that pulls brothers (and some sisters) back from that brink of destruction.

Our sexuality is sacred, far more sacred than most of us realize. Restraint, self-control, waiting for the right person and the right time is a good thing. It refines us and enables us to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly. Commitment makes life worth living. Whatever is good becomes far better when we stick with it and work at it. And love is the sacred fabric of the Universe, the beginning and end of our existence and the source of our divine being. Sex that serves love's agenda is the only kind of sex really worth having.