Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Church of the Latter Day Saints

We are gay human beings everywhere. Not so funny when we seek to get some spiritual solace from the world around us.

From Salt Lake City

"
Johnson, a lesbian, hopes the meeting will happen anyway. She left the LDS Church when she was 19.

"There is nothing that causes more inner conflict than loving a religion that doesn't allow you to be fully authentic," she says.

But Gary Watts is pessimistic. When his son came out to his devout Mormon parents in 1989, Gary and Millie Watts started their own search for a break in the church's hard anti-gay line. After years of meetings with church leaders high and low, after "just banging your head against the wall," the Watts gave up and abandoned their faith. Their children - heterosexual and homosexual - followed.

Change, Watts says, can only come from the First Presidency, not a "low-level bureaucrat."
"We were very faithful, devout Mormons. We would have done anything the church would have asked," he adds. "We're no longer loyal. Our entire family [has left the church]. And it's happening to family after family. The church seems willing to accept that collateral damage."

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3 comments:

shasha said...

I have failed to understand people who claim to be believers! If you leave a church because they fail to accept you, who loses; you or the church? Spirituality is between you and God not anybody else.

arachesostufo said...

peace and freedom, ciao da venezia

Cany said...

In CA where same gender marriage was recently legalized, we face a ballot initiative (Prop 8) this November that would amend the state's constitution to allow ONLY for male/female marriage.

One of the groups planning on going door x door (with a member of another faith) to seek support from voters to pass the initiative is the LDS church. The RCC church and many evangelical/fundamentalist churches (naturally) are doing likewise.

The polling is close, but now, as it stands, the measure COULD go down to defeat. However, the pro group has just hired organizers in various areas to get the vote out.

What this means, pragmatically, is that EVERY progressive, lgbt, and lgbt supporters must go vote. The Evangelical/fundamentalist types have about an 80% voting record in terms of getting out, while progressive secularits and progressive "believers" have only about a 20% chance.

So...

Gonna be an interesting November here in California.

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