I’ll be doing my usual SiOB later today, but there was one incident that everyone is talking about that deserves separate attention. By chance, I read about it first on JG-W’s blog: The worst part was not his referring to parts of the Bible as “bullshit” in front of an assembly full of high school ...
The gay/Mormon intersection has been in the news a lot recently. There’s the gay BYU students and LDS parents of gay kids who’ve made “It Gets Better” videos. There’s talk of bishops apologizing and standing up for gay members in their wards. Yesterday, a group of gay Mormons met with Mormon officials (no higher leadership, ...
As usual, the interesting conference stories trickle in during the week after General Conference (though many in our community have stopped taking an interest in it). The best part (aside from the amazing food) was when Russell Nelson trashed the Big Bang — something apparently no one has done in conference before. The funny part ...
A week ago, I wrote a post on my blog about coming out as a gay father. I mentioned strands of Mormon thinking which, I had come to realize, were woven throughout my psyche as a gay father, along with the strands of general homophobia, shame and self-loathing that are endemic to gays and lesbians ...
Invictus Pilgrim formerly blogged at invictuspilgrim.blogspot.com. For personal reasons, he has taken that blog private and has started at new blog at mohosapiens.blogspot.com. The following was his initial post on his new blog. A little over 15 months ago, I was prompted (not in the Mormon sense, but in the common-usage sense) to start blogging ...
A breakup between NARTH and Exodus International has been years in the making. But before I get to it, I think it’s interesting how it’s coming up at the same time that actress Cynthia Nixon is being lambasted by gay rights activists for saying she’s gay by “choice” (and rejecting a bisexual label): I understand ...
I’ve been thinking about how a couple leaders of the LDS Church have vocalized how they wouldn’t mind the 2009 nondiscrimination laws in Salt Lake City (in housing and employment, on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity) be expanded across the state of Utah. Specifically, what they’re interested in is duplicating how those ...
The oldest Catholic newspaper in the US published and quickly retracted an article that suggested that same-sex attraction is caused by Satan. The logic went like this: Disruptive imbalances in nature that thwart encoded processes point to supernatural actors who, unlike God, do not have the good of persons at heart. [...] When natural causes ...
North Star is a Church-affiliated organization that serves as “a place of community for Latter-day Saints dealing with issues surrounding homosexual attraction who desire to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the values and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Since it formed in 2006, it has ...
I wanted to get my two cents in on this topic, including the way the topic is being handled. Thanks to chanson for bringing together the links. A quick summary: Last month, Mitch Mayne, an openly gay man in a San Fransisco ward was called to be ward executive secretary, a position in the bishopric. ...
I read in the paper the a few weeks ago of the death of General Authority emeritus Marion D. Hanks. Elder Hanks very nearly had the privilege of being the first person I ever came out to. Here’s the story, which happened some 32 years ago. My father was a stake president during my adolescent ...
“He must have seen the large tractor trailer approaching from under the Couch Street overpass and timed the jump. Bobby executed a sudden and effortless back flip and disappeared over the railing. The driver tried to swerve, but there was no time … Robert Warren Griffith, age twenty years and two months, had died instantly ...
I just received word that the Human Rights Campaign — in cooperation with Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center is organizing a number of fun events in Salt Lake City this coming weekend! For example, on Saturday afternoon, in the library, there will be a panel on supportive families and healthy communities and their ...
I felt disheartened as I walked away from the restaurant. I had just had lunch with a former priesthood leader (whom I call “John”) who had responded relatively compassionately to a coming out letter I had sent to a few former close family friends. His response, among the few I had received, had been the ...
There was a heated discussion here a few months ago about mixed-orientation marriages. What doesn’t feel resolved for me is how to assess the patriarchy gay Mormon men engage in when they marry women. A couple aspects that seem obvious are the fact that the power of the priesthood runs through men only, so that ...