Alone and Unobserved

Looking back, I’m often surprised at how many things have slipped past me without generating a blog post, even some things I’ve felt very strongly about and things that have affected me deeply. For instance, the August 14, 2006 press release by the Mormon Church’s Public Affairs Department about the Church’s position and philosophy regarding homosexuality and homosexuals. The content was taken from an alleged interview of Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks and Mormon Seventy Lance Wickman, in which two anonymous public-affairs representatives ask probing questions which Oaks and Wickman then answer with the usual obfuscation, “loving” double-talk and outright misinformation.

Let’s start with the title of the release, which is “Same-Gender Attraction.” Yes, that’s right. This is even worse than the hateful, minimizing and misleading term “same-sex attraction,” which I referred to in an older blog post. Not only that, but several times during the interview, Wickman speaks of “gender orientation” as if it were synonymous with “sexual orientation,” only proving—yet again—that these men are in no way qualified to speak about sexuality and gender, since they have evidently not even done the most cursory research in the subject. “Gender orientation” (or, as it is more commonly known, “gender identity”) refers to the gender (male, female, other) an individual identifies with, irrespective of the person’s biological sex. Gender orientation has nothing to do with “sexual orientation”—i.e., which sex the individual is attracted to. Understand that these concepts are taught in any basic course on gender theory and can be learned on the internet in two seconds with a Google search (for instance, here). It is inexcusable that these men make any kind of statement on this very important and very charged subject without informing themselves first.

Shortly after this interview was released, Affirmation (a support and advocacy group for Mormon gays and lesbians) issued its own press release, in which the organization came out publicly against the interview, saying that it was a “statement carefully crafted with the help of the LDS Public Affairs Department” with the sole purpose of protecting the Church’s image.

Affirmation also posted two individual responses. The first was a hard-hitting rebuttal of the Oaks-Wickman interview by Hugo Salinas, associate director of Affirmation. In his statement, Salinas gives points to Oaks for not recommending marriage or aversive therapy as cures for homosexuality, but then immediately takes the points back many times over in pointing out the serious defects in logic and terminology and the complete lack of respect for homosexuals that pervade the interview. Salinas remarks that

a careful reading of this document reveals that the the real purpose of this interview is not to “help” gay and lesbian people and their families, but to spin and deny the accusation of being “homophobic.” In this interview, Elders Oaks and Wickman further insult gays and lesbians by comparing them to people with mental retardation and demonstrating ignorance about the science of human sexuality.

[Yes, that's right—if you didn't make it through the interminable, 8,500-word interview, at one point both Oaks and Wickman compare gay couples who can't get married because of discriminatory laws/doctrines to mentally handicapped people who can't get married because . . . they are of diminished mental capacity. I'm really wondering why that segment wasn't cut, since it was incredibly offensive even on the surface.]

The second item posted to the Affirmation website in response to the press release was a personal letter from Mike Kessler (a member of Affirmation) to the Mormon Church. In the letter, Kessler asks the public affairs department of the Church to take down the “mock interview,” calling it “highly offensive” and saying that it was “riddled with half-truths and circular reasoning.”

You often refer to homosexuality as an affliction which some must bear and suffer. I assure you, the only suffering I have done as a gay man is at the hands and through the words of those who choose to treat me unkindly and unjustly rather than with love and compassion.

Kessler also notes that the most important psychological need experienced by human beings is not for sex but for love, and that condemning gays and lesbians to lives of celibacy is much worse than simply denying them sexual release. I would add that even those heterosexual individuals who are not allowed (per Mormon standards) to be sexually active are still allowed to take part in romantic relationships, but this is denied to homosexual members on pain of excommunication.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the Mormon Church can have whatever doctrine it wants. I’m not a Mormon anymore, so I don’t care about that. But I do care about the tide of misinformation and lies that are spread everywhere about me and others like me, especially in Utah. The Mormon Church needs to get with the facts:

1. Homosexuals exist. “Same-sex attraction” is a myth cooked up by those who want to deny reality.
2. Celibacy is unnatural and harmful, a fact that Dallin Oaks apparently recognizes when it comes to his own personal life. Dallin Oaks’ first wife died July 21, 1998; he was remarried on August 24, 2000, barely two years later. It seems Oaks didn’t enjoy his own brush with celibacy, and remedied the situation as quickly as possible. Why does he think it’s any different for homosexuals?
3. Third, the General Authorities of the Mormon Church do not get a free pass when it comes to facts. They are not authorities on anything other than their own opinions, and whatever subjects they have studied and mastered—just like anybody else!

If the Mormon Church just changed these three little things about itself, we’d get along great. Well, better.