THANKS FOR ASKING

A family friend recently asked me over Facebook what I thought about the new mormons and gays website the Mormon church created a few months ago.

This was my response:

1. I consider it damage control on behalf of the church. If they say they love the sinner and hate the sin enough... maybe people will stop calling them bigots and blaming them for young, gay, Mormon suicides. They probably noticed people google "gay and mormon" a lot and they're attempting to stay at the top of search engines to limit the bad press and PR.

2. I guess I'm grateful they're trying to reach out to gays who've decided to stay in the church... I'm glad the language is softer than in the book the Miracle of Forgiveness where homosexuality is called the "sin against nature"...and the author laments that homosexuality doesn't carry the death penalty... anymore.
 
3. I have no idea if it will do anything to relieve the shame and pity my parents endure from members of their community.

4. In one of the videos on that site ("Our Common Humanity") they talk about how people shouldn't define themselves by their homosexuality because straight people don't define themselves by their heterosexuality... which is just a load of bull shit. 

Everything in this world... movies, books, school, religion, the way we dress, our attitudes, likes, dislikes...all of social life revolves around fitting/shaping people into gender boxes, hetero sex symbols, husbands, wives, ballerina's and firemen. Every aspect of my life is continually at odds with, and affected by the fact that I DO NOT FIT into these socially-assigned categories.

LGBTQ culture exists because we are not allowed to freely or fully exist anywhere else. 

Comments like: "stop flaunting your gayness" or "don't focus on your homosexuality"  are just euphemisms for "get your ass back in that goddamn closet, you're making people uncomfortable!" 

When you're OBVIOUSLY GAY, like I am... you can't just turn it off. 

5. This website seems to be an act of desperation by the Church. They realized it's no longer acceptable to wish a death sentence upon me or tell me I'm going to burn in hell [like those Westboro folks], so instead they're going to try and kill me softly by feigning compassion, disenfranchising my Queerness and slowly suffocating my self-worth and identity until my light goes out.

The good news is, it only works if you buy into it. 

Thanks for asking. No one ever does.
-Gwen