It is a relief that leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are now publicly encouraging members of the Church to study out the issues, make up their own minds, and act and vote according to the dictates of their own conscience, in relation to extending marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples. This occurred most dramatically in recent letters sent out by the LDS stake presidencies of Hawaii that acknowledged in a non-stigmatizing way that members of the Church stand on both sides of this issue. It is also a relief that Church leaders are now publicly acknowledging that even in California during the Prop 8 campaign, when letters from the First Presidency of the Church were directing members to contribute time and talents to ensuring that Prop 8 passed, support for Prop 8 was not a litmus test of faithfulness. In other words, we are now made to understand, members of the Church have always had the right to support marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, and have always had the right to determine how and where to invest their time and talents on this political issue, and to vote according to their conscience. What a relief.
I listened carefully to the letters read over the pulpits of Minnesota LDS wards in 2012 during the campaign related to Amendment 1 (a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage in Minnesota). These letters urged members to study the issues out, make up their own minds, and decide for themselves how best to get involved in this political issue. I know many Mormons who opposed Amendment 1, and who worked in the campaign to defeat it. These members were clearly following the counsel they'd received over the pulpit from Church leaders every bit as much as members who supported Amendment 1.
I remember, though, how gingerly members of the Church approached this subject. Many assumed, based on what happened in California during the Prop 8 campaign, that support for marriage equality might be considered lack of faith or disobedience to the Brethren. I could quote to them verbatim what had been written to the contrary in the letters read over Minnesota pulpits, but many members of the Church still worried and wondered if "studying the issues out" really meant that as members of the Church in good standing they weren't still supposed to draw the conclusion than that marriage equality for gay couples should be opposed.
I spoke to one member of my ward about this issue, and he shared a painful story with me. He told me how he had taken the counsel of the First Presidency during Prop 8 to heart. He personally did not like the idea of voting to deny marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples. But, he reasoned, the Brethren may know things about this issue that I do not. He took it as a matter of faith. And acting in faith, he voted against his conscience. He believed that after the election, following a well known LDS principle of faith, he would receive a confirmation that he had done the right thing. Knowledge comes after we exercise faith. That's how he reasoned.
He told me, however, that after the election, after Prop 8 passed, he did not receive a confirmation that he had done the right thing. Quite the opposite. He said he felt sick to his stomach. He felt disgusted with himself for doing something he believed to be wrong, something that now was going to harm thousands of his fellow citizens. And he vowed to himself, "Never again. Never again will I do something just because the Brethren tell me to do it, when doing so violates my conscience. It's not worth it." He committed himself from then on to support marriage equality for all families -- not just heterosexual families. No matter what Church leaders said or did.
There has been much discussion about the "cost" the LDS Church paid for its political support of Prop 8. There's been discussion about the financial cost (decreased giving to the Church, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars spent on a campaign that ultimately failed important judicial tests of fairness), the impact on membership (members leaving the Church over this, painful divisions that turned family member against family member and ward member against ward member, prospective members refusing to talk to the missionaries and refusing to join), and the social cost (protests against the Church in California and elsewhere, and the harm to the Church's public image).
But there hasn't been enough discussion, in my opinion, about the moral cost. The spiritual cost. The cost in Church members' feelings of betrayal after Prop 8. My friend's story poignantly illustrates those costs which in my opinion are far, far higher.
I should add that, while we can all -- Mormon and non-Mormon -- draw a sigh of relief that the Church has affirmed the principle of separation of Church and state, it must surely be disquieting to many to consider how many Mormons would readily have embraced a denial of this principle, how many Mormons -- whether or not they were sanctioned by Salt Lake -- did make political opposition to marriage equality a litmus test for faith. That the Church is now officially saying they were wrong to do so should only partially alleviate whatever disquiet that might inspire.
Nevertheless.... It is a relief that LDS Church leadership is slowing backing away from this political issue. I am glad that the news is slowly but surely getting out that Mormons may support full marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples and their families.
*****
Yet and still... I am not satisfied with where things stand. And here is why.
I think the best way to explain it would be to say that if I were an atheist, I would be quite happy and completely satisfied with where things stand. Because if a Mormon says, "I believe that there is no marriage equality for gays in Heaven; but so far as matters are concerned in the political realm here on earth, I support marriage equality," if I were an atheist I would say, "Well, Mormons support me in the only realm that matters."
But I am not an atheist. I am a believing Mormon. And to a believing Mormon, a statement such as the one I've given as an example is not comforting at all. In fact, it is as disquieting and as discomforting as any statement possibly could be. First of all it is discomforting because to a believing Mormon it is the same as saying, "Here in the temporal realm -- the realm which is really just the wink of an eye in the span of eternity -- I support your equality; but I believe that where and when it really matters -- in eternity -- you will not and never can be equal." And it is disquieting because, again, from the view point of a believing Mormon, if you are my brother or sister and you really care about me, you must care about my eternal welfare. If you really believe that there's no good place for a same-sex married couple in eternity, I'd rather you be honest about it here in this realm where there's opportunity to do something about it. I would say supporting politically in the temporal realm something that you see as disabling in the eternal realm means you have not very carefully thought out the full implications of your beliefs.
What about a more nuanced statement of belief? What if our hypothetical Mormon supporter of marriage equality justifies their support in this way: "I believe that God does have a special place in his plan for heterosexual couples; that plan is clearly spelled out in scripture and in the teachings of living prophets. I'm not sure how gay and lesbian people fit into this plan. I know that gay and lesbian people exist. I know that many have discerned -- often at great personal cost -- that the best thing for them is to be in committed same-sex relationships, and that marriage is an enormous benefit to them in their efforts to live moral lives and protect their loved ones. I know they are God's children, and I know God loves them just as much as he loves his heterosexual children, and I don't believe in a God who would make people a certain way and then punish them for building happy lives that are harmonious with the way he's created them. So even though I'm not aware of anything from scriptures or the current teachings of living prophets that explicitly tells us what place gay and lesbian people have in God's eternal plan, I trust that they fit in there somehow, and just how they fit will hopefully sometime soon be revealed to us. And in the meantime, I trust their individual discernment process; I honor the sanctity of their lives and their right and ability to make decisions that they've determined to be best for them. And I think it's wrong, therefore, to treat them unequally under the law. And that's why I fully support marriage for gay and lesbian couples!"
That more nuanced statement I personally live with very comfortably. I think it is a good statement of my own position. Yet I recognize that even here there is still stress and struggle. For many gay and lesbian Mormons, not knowing is a luxury they can't afford. If you are a believing Mormon, eternity means everything, and to be on the wrong side of eternity is to lose everything of value that this life -- even this temporal life -- has to offer.
I personally have found a way forward that works for me, partly because God has spoken to me very clearly about the course I should pursue in my personal life. I am very comfortable where I am in my relationship with God, in my testimony of the Church (which includes an understanding of how truth unfolds line-upon-line, and an understanding of how a key part of our Heavenly Parents' plan involves delegation and agency), and in my relationship with the Church (which is challenging because of my excommunicated status, but nonetheless a blessing to me). I'm finding a way forward in the way of faith, hope, charity and patience those relationships both with God and with the Church teach me.
But I'm also gradually becoming aware that my way forward cannot and should not work for everybody. We speak of the Church as the body of Christ, and we understand each member of that body having diverse gifts -- some of us having gifts of knowledge and others of us having gifts of faith; some of us having gifts of community and others of us having gifts of the courage to go it alone; all of us having unique ways of knowing what we know, and varying abilities to live with ambiguity or cognitive dissonance.
Some of us are in deep pain because of the dogmatism of those who claim to know things about the eternal realm that I think they actually don't know. But far too many of us are also in deep, deep pain and suffering because of the not knowing. We are getting better at addressing the suffering of the former, but
are still not adequately addressing the suffering of the latter. I have to say that regardless of how nuanced your position, therefore, saying "I believe X about eternity, but I'm willing to take position Y in relation to temporal, political issues" must still be unsatisfying if you are concerned about that suffering.
I would say, as a Latter-day Saint, if you take your baptismal covenants seriously, you cannot be unconcerned about that suffering. And I would say, if you are concerned, as I am, there are three things we can do.
First, pray.
Second, be with those who suffer. Bear their burdens with them. Make them know that as long as they suffer, you cannot be fully at ease in your soul, and that you will do what you can to alleviate their suffering.
Third, do something to alleviate that suffering. Talk. Ask questions. Listen. Share. Connect. Build community. Make sure that the voices of those who suffer are being heard.
Third, pray.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Affirmation Reborn
One year ago, Affirmation was at a crossroads. The fundamental question: What role will faith play in our organization?
Two years ago, the Kirtland Conference, organized under the presidency of David Melson, took Affirmation back to the early roots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a way, Kirtland was an acknowledgment of the desire on the part of gay Mormons to come to terms with their past. There are two ways of coming to terms with your past. One way is to make peace with it, and then to move on. Another way is to engage with it, to remember, to let it renew and re-energize your present.
I believe there was divine purpose in God granting stewardship of the Kirtland Temple to the Community of Christ. At least part of that purpose involved their willingness to share the temple with us, to grant us gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Saints access to those sacred precincts. The effect on those of us who have largely been shut out of our temples, out of the places most sacred to us as Latter-day Saints, was electrifying. Kirtland surprised us by revealing how many LGBT Mormons still have a deep yearning to draw from the wellsprings of our faith. In 1835, in the Kirtland Temple, a latter-day Pentecost filled the Saints with light and courage. In 2011 gay Mormons, gathering in the same space, experienced an outpouring of the same Spirit that was poured out on our ancestors in that place.
Once we tasted of that Spirit, we wanted more of it. We learned in Seattle in 2012 that we did not need to gather in an LDS temple to experience an outpouring of the Spirit. All we needed to do was to ask God, "who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not."
One year ago, inspired by the rich outpourings we experienced in Kirtland and then -- to our delight and surprise -- in Seattle, we dared to propose something radical. We dared to suggest that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Mormons could ask for and receive and follow the promptings of the Spirit. We dared to insist that we did not have to choose between being gay and Mormon. We dared to believe that the integrity of our souls allowed that "we through our faith may begin to inherit the visions and blessings and glories of God."
Randall Thacker articulated that vision in terms that resonated with many. Randall was elected president and asked me and Tina Richerson to serve with him as the Executive Committee of Affirmation, and together we extended invitations to all who felt called to this work to join with us.
Randall is a gifted leader, but I don't believe it was ever any one individual or group of individuals who were or are responsible for the incredible influx of new members, new leaders, energy, time and financial resources that came into Affirmation in the coming months. It was the vision.
In the course of leadership gatherings in Washington, DC in January 2013 and in Salt Lake City in April 2013, that vision was hammered out into a plan of action. On the eve of our 2013 conference here in Salt Lake City, during a 2 a.m. Facebook convo with Randall, I looked at the goals we had set only nine months ago, and what we had accomplished since then, and I wept. Back then, they felt like dreams, and now they are flesh and blood reality.
Through the course of the conference I talked to many of the individuals who had been instrumental in bringing those plans to fruition. Again and again I heard the words, "I didn't do that much. I could have done more. I didn't do enough." It was a team effort, not the work of any one individual.
*****
From Seattle (2012) to Salt Lake (2013) conference registrations more than tripled, and our financial assets quintupled. More than 70% of those who participated in the Salt Lake City conference were first time attendees.
More astonishing and moving was the unprecedented numbers of LGBT participants who were accompanied by heterosexual family members, friends and allies -- mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and ward members.
The first night of the conference, the documentary Families are Forever, featuring the family of Tom and Wendy Montgomery, was presented. The Montgomery's were present with their gay teenage son Jordan. In the documentary, Tom and Wendy posed the painful, poignant question: Is there a future for our son in the Church? What is Heavenly Father's plan for his gay sons and daughters? I presented an award to the film's producer, Caitlin Ryan, a Roman Catholic ally I am proud to call my sister in Christ. As I did, I turned to Jordan, sitting on the front row. "We may not fully understand what it is, but our Heavenly Father does have a plan for us. It is our privilege to work it out and to learn what that plan is." The Spirit was thick. Pure joy was beaming from Jordan's face. He knew that whatever his future might be with the Church, his family and hosts of friends would be there with him and for him. Unconditionally.
Later in the conference, I attended a workshop on transgender Mormon experience. I wept at the grace and faith evident in the testimony of Sara Jade Woodhouse, who recognized that even with the intense pain and loss she had suffered as a transgender woman who came of age decades ago in southern Utah, there was good in her life that could not have come without the pain. I wept at the hope and the fervor of Grayson Moore, a transgender young man whose mother, Neca Allgood, had learned to become his fiercest advocate and defender. I honor Sara's bravery as a pioneer, and Grayson and Neca's model of what LDS family values should be all about.
Our sages were there, those who over decades of faithful witness have believed in us when no one else would, when even we had a difficult time believing in ourselves. Saturday morning, Carol Lynn Pearson, who has spent decades lovingly witnessing, hearing and telling and retelling our stories, bore us testimony of our story as she has observed it. We were not unworthy, undeserving and excommunicate. We were heroes. We -- reluctantly or not -- had accepted a call, faced our darkest demons, recovered the elixir of life, and were now called to return to our tribe to share with them the healing that both we and they most desperately needed.
Bob Rees, another of our mentors, presented a workshop with me and three other lesbian and gay Mormons who are active in the Church: Sam Noble, Ellen Koester and Tina Richerson. The title of the workshop was "Restoring our Relationships with the Restored Gospel and Church." Bob spoke compellingly of how the principle of restoration could operate in the lives of LGBT Mormons, healing injury and repairing brokenness. I and the other LGBT participants shared insights from our experience staying connected to the Church or returning to the Church. Basic principles of the gospel, first principles of faith in Jesus Christ and repentance, hope, patience and love had helped us navigate the treacherous challenges of coming out in communities blinded by homophobia. In turn, the challenges we had faced and overcome as LGBT Mormons had deepened our understanding of the Gospel and the Church. No magical answers, no doctrinal formulas; just faith, hope and love. The workshop participants were invited to share their own stories of restoration. The stories revealed pain that was still raw, but also that deep, deep yearning for faith and connection. The workshop was offered twice, because it had garnered the largest numbers of conference pre-registrants. Many of the participants stayed for both sessions of the workshop.
Other panels/workshops, which I unfortunately can't comment on since I didn't attend, included "Growing Up LGBT in America" (with HRC's Ann E. Nicoll and Sharon Groves); "Follow Your Heart: Breaking Through Stereotypes and Confronting Shame, a Guide in Being a Fearless Lesbian Mormon" (with Tina Richerson, Hollie Hancock, Berta Marquez, Kim Mack, Anna Empey and Amy Larson); "Circles of Empathy" (with Kendall Wilcox of the Far Between Project); the "LDS Family Fellowship" panel (with Kathryn Steffenson and the Abhau family, Oviatt family and the Weyman family); a panel on "Spiritual Partnerships" (with Karin Hendricks and Tawyna Smith); "Building Local Communities for LDS LGBT/SSA Individuals, Family and Friends" (with Bryan Hendrickson and Bryce Cook); a BYU USGA panel (with Adam White, Keith Trottier and others); and "Healing Our Spiritual Selves" (with Karin Hendricks, Tawnya Smith and Alaina Hendricks). In the afternoon there was a family/parents discussion group with the Montgomery's, Abhau's, Weymann's, and Oviatt's).
Over lunch, Daniel Parkinson presented a montage of testimonies of LGBT Mormons who had, at the end of deep heartache, often on the verge of suicide, turned to God and been rewarded with powerful personal assurances of divine acceptance and approval.
As in previous years, the heart and soul of conference was in our worship and testimony together. Prayer, hymns, and the conference choir (rehearsals and performance) were heartfelt. The first evening choir rehearsal, I couldn't make it through our singing of "The Spirit of God" without getting choked up at the thought of what it meant to us for the Lord to "extend the Saints' understanding" through returning "visions and blessings" and our anticipation of a day when "the lamb and the lion shall lie down together without any ire." The testimony meeting, this year held Saturday evening to a standing-room-only crowd, was filled with raw authenticity; belief and hope rendered all the more poignant by honest admissions of doubt; a man who wept as he told of an experience in which God healed shattering self-hate. Peter VanDerWalt who had traveled all the way from South Africa, reduced many of us to tears as he told of how he had read the Book of Mormon with the intention to prove the absurdity of religion, and had come away with a testimony of God.
At the "Evening of Affirmation" Saturday night, Judy Finch, featured on the MormonsAndGays.org website, told the story of how her understanding unfolded through decades of wrestling to come to terms with the homosexuality of a son and a grandson. Steve Young used an analogy of faith that LGBT Mormons could relate to when he described the experience of "throwing blind," striving for a goal that you can't see. His wife Barb Young spoke passionately about the pain caused by Proposition 8, and the story of a heterosexual LDS friend of hers whose life and understanding were transformed by the forgiveness of her lesbian next-door neighbors.
Both Friday night and Saturday night, Benji Schwimmer shared his own testimony of the power of authenticity and love, through words and then through dance. My feet didn't dance, but my heart did.
*****
The conference isn't over yet. We will be gathering at the Tabernacle later this morning, and then for a final luncheon in which Mormon ally Erika Munson will speak to us. I risk being a zombie today, having forgone my night's rest in favor of publishing this post.
I could not sleep partly because I miss my husband, whom I wish could have been here with me to witness this richness of love and exuberance and hope. But it was also that I lay in bed, the visions and blessings of the last few days washing over me, replaying again and again in my mind and heart, drawing out tears of gratitude. This conference exceeded all our hopes and expectations.
Affirmation experienced a kind of rebirth this weekend. We've gone back to Affirmation's roots, to the hopes and dreams of Affirmation's founders in the 1970s that LGBT Mormons might find faith, hope, and love against all odds in a Church that denied the possibility of gay Mormon virtue. We've gone back to the roots of our faith as Latter-day Saints, blossomed from the yearning of a 14-year-old farm boy for wisdom greater than that he possessed, who dared to "ask of God."
We too dare to ask.
Two years ago, the Kirtland Conference, organized under the presidency of David Melson, took Affirmation back to the early roots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a way, Kirtland was an acknowledgment of the desire on the part of gay Mormons to come to terms with their past. There are two ways of coming to terms with your past. One way is to make peace with it, and then to move on. Another way is to engage with it, to remember, to let it renew and re-energize your present.
I believe there was divine purpose in God granting stewardship of the Kirtland Temple to the Community of Christ. At least part of that purpose involved their willingness to share the temple with us, to grant us gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Saints access to those sacred precincts. The effect on those of us who have largely been shut out of our temples, out of the places most sacred to us as Latter-day Saints, was electrifying. Kirtland surprised us by revealing how many LGBT Mormons still have a deep yearning to draw from the wellsprings of our faith. In 1835, in the Kirtland Temple, a latter-day Pentecost filled the Saints with light and courage. In 2011 gay Mormons, gathering in the same space, experienced an outpouring of the same Spirit that was poured out on our ancestors in that place.
Once we tasted of that Spirit, we wanted more of it. We learned in Seattle in 2012 that we did not need to gather in an LDS temple to experience an outpouring of the Spirit. All we needed to do was to ask God, "who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not."
One year ago, inspired by the rich outpourings we experienced in Kirtland and then -- to our delight and surprise -- in Seattle, we dared to propose something radical. We dared to suggest that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Mormons could ask for and receive and follow the promptings of the Spirit. We dared to insist that we did not have to choose between being gay and Mormon. We dared to believe that the integrity of our souls allowed that "we through our faith may begin to inherit the visions and blessings and glories of God."
Randall Thacker articulated that vision in terms that resonated with many. Randall was elected president and asked me and Tina Richerson to serve with him as the Executive Committee of Affirmation, and together we extended invitations to all who felt called to this work to join with us.
Randall is a gifted leader, but I don't believe it was ever any one individual or group of individuals who were or are responsible for the incredible influx of new members, new leaders, energy, time and financial resources that came into Affirmation in the coming months. It was the vision.
In the course of leadership gatherings in Washington, DC in January 2013 and in Salt Lake City in April 2013, that vision was hammered out into a plan of action. On the eve of our 2013 conference here in Salt Lake City, during a 2 a.m. Facebook convo with Randall, I looked at the goals we had set only nine months ago, and what we had accomplished since then, and I wept. Back then, they felt like dreams, and now they are flesh and blood reality.
Through the course of the conference I talked to many of the individuals who had been instrumental in bringing those plans to fruition. Again and again I heard the words, "I didn't do that much. I could have done more. I didn't do enough." It was a team effort, not the work of any one individual.
*****
From Seattle (2012) to Salt Lake (2013) conference registrations more than tripled, and our financial assets quintupled. More than 70% of those who participated in the Salt Lake City conference were first time attendees.
More astonishing and moving was the unprecedented numbers of LGBT participants who were accompanied by heterosexual family members, friends and allies -- mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and ward members.
The first night of the conference, the documentary Families are Forever, featuring the family of Tom and Wendy Montgomery, was presented. The Montgomery's were present with their gay teenage son Jordan. In the documentary, Tom and Wendy posed the painful, poignant question: Is there a future for our son in the Church? What is Heavenly Father's plan for his gay sons and daughters? I presented an award to the film's producer, Caitlin Ryan, a Roman Catholic ally I am proud to call my sister in Christ. As I did, I turned to Jordan, sitting on the front row. "We may not fully understand what it is, but our Heavenly Father does have a plan for us. It is our privilege to work it out and to learn what that plan is." The Spirit was thick. Pure joy was beaming from Jordan's face. He knew that whatever his future might be with the Church, his family and hosts of friends would be there with him and for him. Unconditionally.
Later in the conference, I attended a workshop on transgender Mormon experience. I wept at the grace and faith evident in the testimony of Sara Jade Woodhouse, who recognized that even with the intense pain and loss she had suffered as a transgender woman who came of age decades ago in southern Utah, there was good in her life that could not have come without the pain. I wept at the hope and the fervor of Grayson Moore, a transgender young man whose mother, Neca Allgood, had learned to become his fiercest advocate and defender. I honor Sara's bravery as a pioneer, and Grayson and Neca's model of what LDS family values should be all about.
Our sages were there, those who over decades of faithful witness have believed in us when no one else would, when even we had a difficult time believing in ourselves. Saturday morning, Carol Lynn Pearson, who has spent decades lovingly witnessing, hearing and telling and retelling our stories, bore us testimony of our story as she has observed it. We were not unworthy, undeserving and excommunicate. We were heroes. We -- reluctantly or not -- had accepted a call, faced our darkest demons, recovered the elixir of life, and were now called to return to our tribe to share with them the healing that both we and they most desperately needed.
Bob Rees, another of our mentors, presented a workshop with me and three other lesbian and gay Mormons who are active in the Church: Sam Noble, Ellen Koester and Tina Richerson. The title of the workshop was "Restoring our Relationships with the Restored Gospel and Church." Bob spoke compellingly of how the principle of restoration could operate in the lives of LGBT Mormons, healing injury and repairing brokenness. I and the other LGBT participants shared insights from our experience staying connected to the Church or returning to the Church. Basic principles of the gospel, first principles of faith in Jesus Christ and repentance, hope, patience and love had helped us navigate the treacherous challenges of coming out in communities blinded by homophobia. In turn, the challenges we had faced and overcome as LGBT Mormons had deepened our understanding of the Gospel and the Church. No magical answers, no doctrinal formulas; just faith, hope and love. The workshop participants were invited to share their own stories of restoration. The stories revealed pain that was still raw, but also that deep, deep yearning for faith and connection. The workshop was offered twice, because it had garnered the largest numbers of conference pre-registrants. Many of the participants stayed for both sessions of the workshop.
Other panels/workshops, which I unfortunately can't comment on since I didn't attend, included "Growing Up LGBT in America" (with HRC's Ann E. Nicoll and Sharon Groves); "Follow Your Heart: Breaking Through Stereotypes and Confronting Shame, a Guide in Being a Fearless Lesbian Mormon" (with Tina Richerson, Hollie Hancock, Berta Marquez, Kim Mack, Anna Empey and Amy Larson); "Circles of Empathy" (with Kendall Wilcox of the Far Between Project); the "LDS Family Fellowship" panel (with Kathryn Steffenson and the Abhau family, Oviatt family and the Weyman family); a panel on "Spiritual Partnerships" (with Karin Hendricks and Tawyna Smith); "Building Local Communities for LDS LGBT/SSA Individuals, Family and Friends" (with Bryan Hendrickson and Bryce Cook); a BYU USGA panel (with Adam White, Keith Trottier and others); and "Healing Our Spiritual Selves" (with Karin Hendricks, Tawnya Smith and Alaina Hendricks). In the afternoon there was a family/parents discussion group with the Montgomery's, Abhau's, Weymann's, and Oviatt's).
Over lunch, Daniel Parkinson presented a montage of testimonies of LGBT Mormons who had, at the end of deep heartache, often on the verge of suicide, turned to God and been rewarded with powerful personal assurances of divine acceptance and approval.
As in previous years, the heart and soul of conference was in our worship and testimony together. Prayer, hymns, and the conference choir (rehearsals and performance) were heartfelt. The first evening choir rehearsal, I couldn't make it through our singing of "The Spirit of God" without getting choked up at the thought of what it meant to us for the Lord to "extend the Saints' understanding" through returning "visions and blessings" and our anticipation of a day when "the lamb and the lion shall lie down together without any ire." The testimony meeting, this year held Saturday evening to a standing-room-only crowd, was filled with raw authenticity; belief and hope rendered all the more poignant by honest admissions of doubt; a man who wept as he told of an experience in which God healed shattering self-hate. Peter VanDerWalt who had traveled all the way from South Africa, reduced many of us to tears as he told of how he had read the Book of Mormon with the intention to prove the absurdity of religion, and had come away with a testimony of God.
At the "Evening of Affirmation" Saturday night, Judy Finch, featured on the MormonsAndGays.org website, told the story of how her understanding unfolded through decades of wrestling to come to terms with the homosexuality of a son and a grandson. Steve Young used an analogy of faith that LGBT Mormons could relate to when he described the experience of "throwing blind," striving for a goal that you can't see. His wife Barb Young spoke passionately about the pain caused by Proposition 8, and the story of a heterosexual LDS friend of hers whose life and understanding were transformed by the forgiveness of her lesbian next-door neighbors.
Both Friday night and Saturday night, Benji Schwimmer shared his own testimony of the power of authenticity and love, through words and then through dance. My feet didn't dance, but my heart did.
*****
The conference isn't over yet. We will be gathering at the Tabernacle later this morning, and then for a final luncheon in which Mormon ally Erika Munson will speak to us. I risk being a zombie today, having forgone my night's rest in favor of publishing this post.
I could not sleep partly because I miss my husband, whom I wish could have been here with me to witness this richness of love and exuberance and hope. But it was also that I lay in bed, the visions and blessings of the last few days washing over me, replaying again and again in my mind and heart, drawing out tears of gratitude. This conference exceeded all our hopes and expectations.
Affirmation experienced a kind of rebirth this weekend. We've gone back to Affirmation's roots, to the hopes and dreams of Affirmation's founders in the 1970s that LGBT Mormons might find faith, hope, and love against all odds in a Church that denied the possibility of gay Mormon virtue. We've gone back to the roots of our faith as Latter-day Saints, blossomed from the yearning of a 14-year-old farm boy for wisdom greater than that he possessed, who dared to "ask of God."
We too dare to ask.
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