FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Lake City, Utah November 19, 2011. Emily Pearson, author of the newly released book Dancing With Crazy shown in false light on the Friday night ABC Channel 4 News.
An outspoken Ex-Mormon, and daughter of famed LDS writer Carol Lynn Pearson, was shown on an ABC Channel 4 News segment promoting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The video footage shown was, in actuality, taken from a popular video she made for the I Am an Ex-Mormon video series, but was edited to make it appear that she was endorsing and promoting the LDS Church as a part of their Pro-Mormon video series.
Portraying me publicly as a happy Mormon that is proud to endorse the LDS church undermines who I am personally and professionally and damages the credibility of both me and the book I have written chronicling my journey both in and out of the Mormon Church. Pearson said Saturday. To take my image and words and use them to promote the very institution that caused me so much pain is ridiculous and inexcusable.
Much attention is being given to the I Am a Mormon video series and its attempt to normalize Mormons and portray them in a more positive light. But, there are a huge number of individuals that feel otherwise, have left the Mormon Church and are speaking out about it in their own I Am an Ex-Mormon videos. Equal time needs to be given to those who know, through experience, that being Mormon isnt all that it is advertised to be in this current Church Media Ad Campaign.
That is inexcusable. I hope she sues them or otherwise draws attention to their misrepresentation and their obvious pro-Mormon bias. Moreover, that little piece is far from balanced (as you pointed out).
Thanks for posting this. Good to know.
Looks like the clip has been taken down. Did ABC4 realize their mistake? Probably just lazy journalism.
I think the folks over at r/exmormon have solved this mystery: do a google search for I’m a Mormon and Emily’s exmo vid is one of the top results.
I’m not sure if I’ll purchase the memoir, but I’m baffled as to why Pearson married a gay man after the experience of having a gay father (which she describes in her ex-Mormon YouTube video as having to choose between him and the Church) and having a mother who wrote a very famous memoir about the pitfalls of her mixed-orientation marriage. Makes me wonder about the mother/daughter relationship in the early 1990s.
I’m discouraged by some things that appear to be written by her — such as this post at blog called Wildflowers that is aimed for women who’ve married gay men:
Well, if it’s acknowledged that neither the guy nor the girl could have been “honest with themselves” all those years ago, then it’s possible the guy didn’t “always know” he was gay. It’s the classic heterosexist blame-game. The gay person is moved to admit they were “always gay,” which is not the same as “always knowing one is gay,” but they’re basically made one and the same when it comes time to place blame. And then everyone becomes an advocate for gay people coming out earlier and earlier so that straight people won’t be “harmed” by the awkwardness of gayness in heterosexist societies.
Meanwhile, while everyone is concentrating on “It Gets Better [When You’re out]” and the next battleground state for gay marriage, 30-40% of homeless youth are LGBTs:
/rant
Alan — What if (for the sake of argument) a guy did know that he was gay, and he felt that he could never love a woman in the same way he could love a guy. Yet, for various reasons, he was very intent upon finding a woman to court and marry. What would you advise him? Would you encourage him not to do it? Or would you tell him that it’s just those awful “straight-privilege” folks who are being heterosexist to advise him that that’s a bad idea?
“there are a huge number of individuals that feel otherwise, have left the Mormon Church and are speaking out about it in their own I Am an Ex-Mormon videos”
Since when does 30-40 people count as a “huge number?” I think there are people cycling in and out of all religious movements, but in a world of 7 billion people, I don’t think you hit huge until at least ten million or so.
Alan, the reason coming out is hard isn’t because life as a gay person is inherently hard, it’s because people like you and the religious majority shame them, blame them, shun them, hate them, and be anything but “Christian” to them.
@5 –
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or if you actually think that’s where my logic leads. I understand that you’re interested in stopping the situation before the harm is done, but unless you plan to go out there and involve yourself in every mixed-orientation engagement, then I’m not sure why the focus is on an instance of the problem as opposed to the overall issue. As I mentioned in a previous thread, people have tried to involve themselves in other people’s engagements, and it doesn’t really have much of an effect, especially if the two are committed to marrying. We’re not going to get any closer to stopping the harm if the situation keeps getting framed such that the harm comes from the gayness (and its effect on the straight person/people), as opposed to the heterosexism’s effect on both/everybody.
Consider this passage from a Mormon woman angry at her gay ex-husband:
In Mormonism, there’s still an idea that gayness is something that can and should be put aside, and if the gay person doesn’t or isn’t willing, particularly if they’re already married, then they’re being utterly selfish. I think it’s probably safe to say that the woman in the passage above is being hurt not only by the man’s probable selfishness (given that it sounds like he was engaged in another relationship before divorcing his wife), but also by her own heterosexist beliefs about how he ought to compartmentalize his gayness for God and the marriage. And, well, there are plenty of gay LDS husbands who do compartmentalize, adding to the notion that those who don’t are selfish.
@7: Uh, what?
A-200, RID, or Nix? If it’s my understanding that we’re in a monogamous relationship and yet I somehow find myself contemplating which brand would work best on my latest pubic lice infestation, it’s gonna be really awkward when you finally ‘fess up. I might even blame you. And if you defended yourself with some self-serving mbius strip argument about how it’s also my fault because I’m shallow and Dan Savage is my favorite social theorist and I don’t do enough for homeless kids, you’d get an eyeroll while I chucked your crap in the street and called the locksmith.
I don’t see why you object to Emily Pearson answering a question and giving advice to a person who wrote her a letter on a subject where she has personal experience. That’s not equivalent to getting involved in everyone’s marriage.
Yes, because all LDS gay men infect their wives with pubic lice that they get from sleeping with men. I think the real mbius strip here is how no matter how many times a gay person outs themselves, they still get closeted over and over again by the fact that people assume a person is straight unless told otherwise. Unless, of course, a person wears their sexuality on their sleeve, at which point straight people complain that gays are being too “sexual.”
@11: I was just disappointed at how Pearson congratulates a gay person for being “honest” about being gay. She writes:
Well, that might work for someone like Rachel Maddow who has the fame to only need to come out once and can suggest it’s the “responsibility” of gay famous people to come out, but for the rest of us, the closet is the default position. If you’re Mormon and want to stop gay people from marrying straight people, then it isn’t not about ensuring gays come out at the right time, it’s about fighting the homosexual relationships are sinful mantra. End of story.
I have to admit that when I heard Emily Pearson’s mother, Carol, speak at an Affirmation conference a few years ago, I was dismayed by the emotionality she exhibited concerning her support for same-sex marriage. It’s hard to explain what bothered me, almost like, same-sex marriage is a way to “fix the heretofore unfixable”…or “listen up, Mormon gays, you should really jump on board with this gay marriage business.” Now that I’ve done some more research, the pieces fit together better. Carol Pearson in 1987:
Obviously a lot can change in a mindset after 20 years of advocacy, but here is her position now:
As long as homosexual behavior is regarded as sin, these things ain’t gonna stop. You can’t “love” a person into wanting to be celibate. Her advocacy seems lacking — or perhaps even self-interested (since she wouldn’t be able to maintain an “insider” status if she came out against “scripture” and charge Mormons $70/hr for gay-related consultations.). But anyhow, this explains the mother/daughter relationship in the 1990s question I had and why perhaps good advice was not imparted, but I would have to read the memoir to be sure.
Sorry for the Pearsons-according-to-Alan-threadjack.
You do realize that we’re talking about a case where a man has actively chosen to court and marry a woman, not a case where some random person assumes some random acquaintance is straight….? Are you saying that it’s heterosexist for a straight person to assume that his/her opposite sex fiance is straight?
Well, as you point out, it’s often difficult for people who are raised Mormon to analyze their own sexuality, and to be honest about it with themselves and others. Those people who have done something difficult (and perhaps brave), good for them — they deserve congratulations.
Alan- I never made this claim:
All I’m really doing here is riffin’ on Emily’s exmo conference presentation (linked in the sidebar) that you can listen to here, gratis.
Alan
I am reminded of the days of yore, where the merchant thought the problem was not that there were nobles, but that he was not one. And eff the serfs.
Where men get to be Kings and Priests and rule over there own planet with a helpmeet(or helpmeets) to produce a heir and a spare, the real unpardonable sin is to deprive a man of his eternal glory.
Privileging “real” straight relationships over “counterfeit” gay relationships results in homosexuality being a sin.
And the heterosexism I see, is the one that devalues gay relationships by insisting that gay men are just as privileged as straight men over all women.
This uppity peon has run off to the woods with her pitchfork. And if the Noble (or Baronet) sends his minions to put me in my place, they’d better stay out of range of my pitchfork or they’re getting skewered.
To bring it back to the OP, I find it ironic that Emily has to repeatedly come out of the ex-mormon closet. Not that being LGBT and being an exmo have much (if anything) in common, just that the assumption is that a person is straight, or mormon, until they say otherwise.
Alan, I can understand that you are upset by Carole Lynn Pearson’s updated statements, but should Emily really be judged by what her mom said or says? I personally think that’s not fair, and am very thankful people do not judge me by what my parents say.
I haven’t read her book (or listened to the exmo presentation). I simply think it’s unfair to blame (criticize) her because her ex happens to be gay. The crux of the argument seems to be who knows what when…and who should tell whom what when.
In the end, I think everyone can agree that encouraging MOM, trying to change someone’s sexual orientation is a bad idea (eventually fruitless and sometimes painful).
chanson@13:
In Mormonism, yes, because the only fiances anyone is allowed to have are opposite sex, which means it’s certain some people will be closeted. Moreover, finding an opposite sex mate in Mormonism isn’t framed as a choice; it’s framed as a requirement. Under these circumstances, I absolutely think it’s heterosexist to not give thought to whether one’s opposite sex fiance might be gay.
Sure, if the congratulations are in order for the reason of honesty to oneself. But the passage appeared to connect the congrats to not harming the straight person with the gayness.
Chino@14: Thanks for the link. Her life sure was a roller coaster.
Suzanne@15:
You’re absolutely right that “heterosexism” includes the ways that patriarchy devalues gay and lesbian relationships. I’m not sure where our disagreement lies, if there’s any.
aerin@16:
I wouldn’t say that I’m judging Emily on the basis of Carol; rather, I just wondered where Carol was in Emily’s life such that Emily would fall into a similar trap (unlike Carol, Emily knew she was marrying a gay man and she had witnessed her parents’ failed MoM). From the exmo presentation, Carol is mysteriously absent in Emily’s story after Gerald’s death. And actually, the almost-marriage to a polygamist situation takes the cake over the fact of Emily marrying a gay man, in terms of how much Emily’s life had spiraled out of control from her “religious addiction.” The way I think of it is the Church’s patriarchy distances even mothers from daughters, given that Emily was concentrating so much on priesthood blessings to tell her what to do with her life and who to marry. When her aunt said, “Um, you should decide for yourself whether you want to marry a person,” Emily was shocked by the possibility.
Thanks, though, aerin, for acknowledging what I’m saying about the troubles with Carol Pearson’s politics. I’m fairly certain that Emily probably doesn’t agree fully with her mother’s politics, but won’t go out of her way to vocalize that, just as my own Mormon mother’s “pro-gay” stances leave much to be desired. Also, the “Mormon closet” vs “gay closet” is insightful.
alan@9
Alan, I apologize, I don’t know you and I misread your post, so I misunderstood where you were coming from in what you wrote. My bad. Again, I’m sorry.
Alan, you will love the memoir.
I read it non-stop. Of course, we are all wondering why the daughter of a gay man would marry another gay man. In light of depth psychology, it’s not such a big puzzle, I thought, after all, many people relive their parents mistakes.
But Emily’s own answer is much more fascinating. I don’t want to spoil it but she had been through a lot before she got married.
Domination complicates responsibility, doesn’t it?
That’s why it is difficult to figure out what the obligation of straight and gay Mormons. Normally, it would be reasonable of a fiance in a heterosexual relationship to assume that their partner desires them.
Unfortunately, coercion creates incentives for all of us to lie. Whenever I lied about anything that had to do with Mormonism, I lied to myself first.
So we end up in a situation where the blanket is too short. The straight partners get hurt if they don’t know about their fiance’s orientation. The gay partners get hurt if they acknowledge who they are. And then everyone gets hurt when the marriage goes ahead.
What kind of a world is that? While I recognize that we have to take responsibility for our lives because it is the only to protect ourselves and to be free, I refuse to blame twenty-some year old young couples.
The fish begins to stink at the head. We need to go after the most powerful individuals and institutions and not put all the burden on the weakest such as gay Mormon men.
What we can do is to create more safe spaces for Mormon gays. When we attack the organization, the culture, and the individuals that induce lies and denial, may be, some gay kid will recognize that there are people who care about him or her. That can only help.
I am also not comfortable with blaming a single mother who has had to take care of a former spouse with a terminal disease for the crises of her children. Nobody is perfect and with the benefit of hindsight, there are plenty of mistakes that can be found in any parent. But it is not fair to judge somebody who is such a difficult situation.
In my opinion, it would better if we just stood back with awe, awe for the tragedy and humanity. And respect for the people who are keeping it real when it comes to talking about their family life. It’s a courageous and useful thing to do.
I still think that — given the lack of awareness about homosexuality in Mormon circles (eg. they’re frequently taught that “recovery” programs are effective) — many young, naive straight Mormons are not aware/educated about this possibility. If only you could publish the above in the Daily Universe, warning young people that — as long as they stay Mormon — they have no grounds to trust that their spouse/fiance is telling the truth about being straight, as opposed to putting on a deceptive, closeted facade.
If a person intentionally does something difficult that avoids harming another person, that act deserves congratulations regardless of the marginalized-group status of either person involved.
And yet, curiously, in your universe @12, it’s also heterosexist for Carol Lynn Pearson to value gay and lesbian relationships, and to tell the ‘voices of authority’ to stop counselling people into MOMs…
OK, one more because I’m a glutton for punishment.
Alan, you went out and found some quotes from Emily Pearson and Carol Lynn Pearson (from other sites/venues) discussing the subject of mixed-orientation-marriage, and then wrote this in response:
So, are you saying that people like EP and CLP (who have been the straight partner in MLMs) have no business talking publicly about their personal experiences, and how being in an MLM affected them? Or discussing insights that they gained from their personal experiences?
chino @14 — Thanks for the link to Emily’s presentation at the Exmormon Conference! It’s excellent, particularly the part where she describes how she came to take a polygamist’s marriage proposal seriously, and her description of her deconversion epiphany. I’m always fascinated by the variety of emotional and spiritual experiences that lead people to cherish the church (and, later, to leave it). As different as the experiences are, there seem to be common threads.
I can’t wait to read her book!
Hellmut@20:
I agree with your analysis, Hellmut.
chanson@22/23:
Yes, because all young people are straight people who need to be protected from gayness.
“Deceptive, closeted facade” sounds an awful lot to me like “abominable sin.” It sounds like you’re blaming the gay person for being closeted, and want to protect all the straight people from the gayness. As Hellmut notes @20, gay people in Mormonism often get hurt when they admit to themselves they’re gay (since there’s no space for it in the culture). If a person is closeted, it’s not their fault. The “deception,” as it were, is that the person ever had to pretend to be straight in the first place. The “deceiving” is the overall culture that would have everyone be straight. The culture deceives itself. The gay person usually does not do the deceiving.
By “usually” I mean that, it is conceivable that a man who’s been “out” his whole life decides one day that he wants to deceive a woman and marry her. Such a man would not be “closeted,” though. “Closeted” refers to being steeped in heterosexism and homophobia such that a person is not out to themselves and/or others. “Deceiving” is not a word I use for Mormon twentysomethings aiming for marriage, who’ve never had sex, and whose culture tells them that everyone is eternally straight and that “same-sex attraction” is a just a blip in the great hetero scheme of things.
The EP and CLP quotes I pulled are troubling ones. This is not the same as saying that they have no business doing advocacy work.
When it comes to the responsibility of resolving this, I think about the situation prior to marrying age. Because if a person is still closeted at marrying age, it’ll take a direct intervention by more than one person to stop a marriage from happening. That’s what I meant above by it being impractical to focus on an instance of the issue (an impending mixed-orientation marriage) as opposed to attacking the fish’s head (heterosexism).
I think about this between a parent and a child. It’s not the child’s responsibility to inform the parent that he or she is gay; it’s the parent’s responsibility to anticipate that the child might be gay so that the child can be feel safe and loved as he or she is. Currently, the status quo in Mormonism is to ensure a child does not become gay, and with such an upbringing, it makes it all the more unreasonable to blame gay LDS people for being closeted at marrying age.
Alan
I’d be beyond upset if my dearly beloved suddenly announced that she was really straight and married me because of x,y and z.
I think when people are entering into a committed partnership, honesty is part of it.
Say maybe I’m wanted for murder in three states, or I’m the sole heir of a very rich aunt, or I’m gonna be taking a job that’ll keep me away for seven years, or my dog comes first, or that I’m straight.
And yes, I may lose out, probably will, but if I’m intimately intertwining my life with another, we both need to know the score as best we know it.
And when it comes to marriage, I want to grab the church and yell–You need to teach potential couples to see each other as a fellow human and not as a ticket to the Celestial Kingdom.
The 20+-year-old CLP quote (cited @12) is, without question,offensive. However, I suspect she has evolved on this issue in the meantime. Hence I wouldn’t judge her on the basis of that quote without first determining where she stands today.
Past that, I’m not sure it’s useful for me to continue this back-and-forth. To anyone who is new here and interested in this discussion, I highly recommend reading this earlier discussion.
And let me just give a brief summary of my POV:
Regarding mixed-orientation-marriage: I no personal experience or personal stake in this issue. My only knowledge of it comes from the years I’ve spent in the exmo community reading blogs and memoirs. I don’t claim to be an expert, so take my words with a grain of salt.
It is my impression that not every MOM is doomed to fail (especially not if one of the orientations is bisexual). However, many people (straight and gay) can only form an intimate spouse-like emotional bond with people of one particular pre-determined gender.
Often in mixed-orientation marriages, the gay parter finds that s/he cannot form a spouse-like intimate bond with his/her partner, and is left with a constant feeling of loneliness and longing. The straight partner, consequently, feels a constant sense of rejection (and often also inadequacy). Then they both (subconsciously) blame each other, adding a layer of bitter resentment to the mix. When this happens, it is often spectacularly painful — even devastating — to both partners.
Alan’s remarks (here and on earlier threads) give me the impression that he feels that any discussion of the straight partner’s pain is a divisive, heterosexist framing. Even if the gay partner’s pain is discussed in the same article. Even if it’s the straight partner herself talking about her own personal experiences. (And let’s not beat around the bush about the gender of the “straight partner” here — I don’t recall seeing Alan complain about a man of any orientation telling his side of a story.)
Personally, I think that it is a divisive framing to insist on silencing either side of the story.
I don’t recall complaining about a woman of any orientation telling her side of a story either. I’m just pointing out the heterosexism of a story.
A [not-as-]brief summary of my POV:
Mixed-orientation marriages in Mormonism come about one of three ways:
(1) The queer person is not “out” to themselves (because gay desire is thought of as evil, or they’re just a late bloomer); hence, their sexuality unfolds in a marriage to the detriment of both the hetero and homo partners.
(2) The queer person is “out” to themselves (gay desire is thought of as neutral; only evil if acted upon). They believe their desire is not significant to who they are, because the Church teaches them such desire is not “eternal.” Because they believe it’s not significant to who they are, they don’t tell their partner before marriage (though probably vacillate on the matter), and their sexuality unfolds in the marriage to the detriment of both the hetero and homo partners (or, in some instances, the person is bisexual and/or the gay desire turns out to be not significant).
(3) The queer person is “out” to themselves (gay desire is thought of as neutral; evil if acted upon). They believe it is significant to who they are, although, being Mormon, they still probably don’t think it’s “eternal.” They tell their potential partner about their desire. Their sexuality unfolds in the marriage to the determinant of both the hetero and homo partners (although again, the person could end up being bisexual or more emotionally/sexually fluid).
The following is not one of the ways they form:
(*) The queer person is “out” to themselves. They believe the desire is significant to who they are. But they decide they want to deceive a straight partner for a lifetime to reach the Celestial Kingdom.
This is what chanson does @5. She conjures a gay man whose sole trait is to deceive a straight woman into marrying him, which then suggests, “Look, a gay man is deceiving a straight woman into marrying him.” It’s an unrealistic, simplistic tautology that serves to ensure that the gayness is what harms the straight person instead seriously examining how heterosexism in Mormonism plays out for both.
And since that previous thread was brought up, that is the same thing Holly did @48: “I say that its appropriate to blame gay men who know they are gay and withhold this information from women they court, propose to, and marry. In other circumstances, not so much.”
Sounds like you’re pretty much blaming the gayness for the failed marriage.
Chanson’s remarks (here and on earlier threads) give me the impression that she feels that any discussion of heterosexism in mixed-orientation discourse is not acceptable unless we ensure that there’s also an avenue of gay offense. Oftentimes there are offenses committed by the gay partner (e.g., cheating on his/her spouse, leaving a woman to raise kids alone, etc), but this is different than blaming the gayness itself (“if he would just have told me his ‘secret'”: a heterosexist expectation in Mormon culture).
It just so happens that there’s not as much research on lesbian/straight male marriages, but rather than beat around the bush about the supposed “fixed” genders in this discussion, I intentionally form my comments so that lesbian/straight male marriages also apply to what I’m saying concerning heterosexism — and so I use gender-neutral language (except where I intentionally don’t). Chanson’s remarks further give me the impression that she feels discussing heterosexism in straight women particularly is not acceptable unless we also talk about patriarchy. I have no problem talking about patriarchy, so long as it’s not used to run away from the issue of heterosexism. Mixed-orientation marriages in Mormonism create a particular manifestation of heterosexism in straight Mormon women, IMO, which, IMO, is worthy enough of a topic to talk about on its own. (Though I doubt this is the place for that at this point.)
I could go on… but…
@12 I compared what CLP said in 1987 to what she said in a 2006(?) interview, and judged accordingly.
Seems my words fall off the
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Alan, the quote from the Wildflowers site did not come from me. It was from another woman in the group, originally left on the previous post “Letter From A Gay Husband” which is why it was titled “Wildflower”response. Easy to mistake because everything on there was labeled “posted” by me but not everything on that blog was “written” by me – certainly not that.
Hi, Emily. I appreciate you noting that. I’m glad I qualified with “appear to be written by” rather than 100% assuming — although, obviously once we got rolling here, it did fall into 100% assumption. My apologies.
Alan’s comment @28 seems to make sense to me (i.e., I think I understand its meaning) in a way that a lot of the ongoing discussion starring Alan and Holly has not. I’d better comment now before the confidence wears off!
A quick paraphrase as a check on my understanding: (a) there is a fact (the man is gay), which the woman does not know, and the man may or may not know; (b) the man may believe, or not believe, that a future husband’s sexual orientation is material information for the marriage, i.e., something he would have a moral obligation to disclose to the woman if he knows it. Finally (c) the man may or may not disclose his orientation to the woman.
Disregarding irrelevancies, the possibilities seem to be:
Alan’s #1. The man (a) does not know, and therefore (c) does not disclose; (b) is irrelevant.
Alan’s #2. The man (a) knows, (b) thinks it is immaterial, and (c) doesn’t disclose.
Alan’s #3. The man knows, thinks it is material, and discloses.
Alan’s “*”. The man knows, thinks it is material, but does not disclose.
And for completeness, #3b: the man might know, think it’s immaterial, and disclose anyway. I don’t think this is different from #3 in any interesting way.
On #2, I would agree with Chanson’s use of “deceive” that Alan said he disagreed with. As I see it, the man’s orientation is, in fact, material information that his wife should know. His mistaken belief to the contrary is relevant to his culpability, but the wife’s knowledge going into the marriage is identical between #2 and “*”, i.e., she is deceived. Is this just a matter of word choice, or in other words, Alan, do you agree with my formulation but take “deceive” to imply more than I do about the man’s state of mind, so that you would not use the word?
In my generation (50-ish), I wouldn’t rule out “*”. Telling anyone, even a fiancee—perhaps especially a fiancee—that I was gay really didn’t seem possible to me in my early twenties. It was very clear to me that I was, pretty clear that marrying a woman without telling her would be wrong, and very clear that the Church said I’d better get married. Fortunately in my case it was the marriage demands that gave way under the pressure, but speaking hypothetically, I think it’s very likely I would have found telling a future wife about my orientation more unbearable than deceiving her if it had ever come to it. There would have been all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but I would still have knowingly done her harm, although without fully understanding how much.
Writing this, I’m a little amazed at just how irrational my thinking was. It would be much harder to be so isolated today. I had never read anything on sexual orientation besides the Kimball/Packer-style literature of the time, never spoken to another person I knew was gay, and although I did know other views of the matter existed, I had no idea what they were (except as caricatured in church literature) or how to find them.
On the other side of that coin, I don’t think Mormon women at that time were any better prepared to deal with sexual orientation than I was. I’ve read more than one account of disastrous MoMs from that period in which the husband did tell his wife that he was gay, and the marriage went ahead anyway. Of course everyone’s outlook at the time was that it was a temporary phase, overcomeable, etc., so instead of the logical conversation (“I’m gay.” “OK, let’s not get married.”) there were “struggles” “in the past” with “homosexual activity”, with bishops waiting in the wings to reassure all concerned that the marriage could and should go ahead, with the understanding that he would just get over it. I think many women were led to believe that it would be as simple as that, and many men at least though it was possible.
Although I’m grateful to have dodged this particular bullet, there were other conflicts in my youth between my own integrity, the welfare of others, and the Mormon scheme of things. It is still distressing to remember how I responded to some of them even when I take into account all the extenuating circumstances and recognize that it was not humanly possible to avoid every mistake. Regardless of how it came about, the nature and consequences of some of the actions I took are not something I can think well of, and at least in one compartment of my mind, I knew better at the time.
Badger@31:
Notice how I didn’t use “orientation” in my formulations. I said, “gay desire.” Straight people have gay desire sometimes, just as gay people sometimes have straight desire. In Mormonism, the only “orientation” a person is supposed to have is “oriented to one’s opposite-sex spouse.” All other desire is considered in the way of this. However, many queer Mormons today do consider themselves to have a “homosexual orientation” and I will speak to that below. What I’ll say for now is if the desire is formulated in the man’s mind as an “orientation,” then that means the man would consider it “material,” because that’s what the concept of “orientation” in modern parlance implies. Thus, the situation would actually be an example of either (3) or (*) and not (2).
In your case, you suggest your situation was an example of (*), but I beg to differ. You write:
This tells me that the implication of a “homosexual orientation,” as it is currently understood in modern parlance was not something floating in your head. Was it not the case that you married your wife with a foggy expectation that you would be “oriented” to her someday, if not now, then in the afterlife? You didn’t go into the marriage thinking it was all for naught, did you? I would describe you as a (2) — which, if you notice included “vacillating on the matter.” The vacillation, or indecision, is not your fault, because the overarching situation that would have you harm a person merely as a result of being who you are and following the rules is not of your making.
The gay person “knowingly harms” straight people by being unable to conform to a straight standard. This “knowingness” is actually inescapable guilt handed to gay people by heterosexism. I say inescapable, because not trying to conform or walking away from the situation is even worse of an offense, as far as the heterosexist culture is concerned.
We like to think, from the outside-looking-in, that the person can shed the guilt if they just come “out” and walk away from the situation, which is true, but all those people on the inside are in no better position for it. The insider gays are still being spoon-fed that their desire is wayward and that they need to learn to conform. The insider straights are still being spoon-fed that gay desire is wayward. In the grand scheme of things, the situation has to change from the inside-out, which makes it all the more imperative that the blame be placed where it should.
When it comes to an instance of (2), I wouldn’t blame a person for thinking that their gay desire is, from an “eternal” perspective, immaterial (to include vacillating on the matter) when this is the cue they receive from their culture. Recognizing the irrationality of this can only come in hindsight. When blame is placed due to harm from this outlook, one ought to blame the culture for “deceiving” both the gay person and the straight person.
Now what about (3)? You’re right that in Mormonism today often people will tell their future spouse that they’re “gay” or “homosexually oriented,” and yet they marry and are married by a opposite-sex spouse anyway. This is a relatively new phenomenon. It would take a lot of detail for me to explain how this phenomenon came about in Mormonism, which I’m prepared to do, but not here at this time. Regardless, (3) makes clear that to stop the inherent “harm” we perceive in this situation, it has nothing to do with when the gay person comes out, since gays come out all the time in modern Mormonism and opposite-sex spouses continue to wed them. (As a case in point, if you were to engage in an information campaign about the pitfalls of mixed-orientation marriages, the folks at North Star would eat it up to try to lower the failure rate, not lower the instances of the marriages.) The “harm,” of course, is the heterosexism that has homosexual relationships deemed as “sin,” so that a mixed-orientation marriage is the only kind of marriage seen as available to a gay person.
And, finally, if it wasn’t clear earlier, my “judgment” of Carol Lynn Pearson is that her politics is lacking because she refuses to cast judgment on the “sin” issue for whatever reason (I cynically think for self-interested reasons, but whatever). I have no doubts that organizations like Evergreen, North Star or Exodus will eventually be able to point to enough successful MoMs that Pearson won’t have a leg to stand on regarding her focus on the failure of MoMs. Obviously, the majority still appear to fail at this time, but I have no doubts that the Mormon machine will social-service the issue to Kingdom Come (even by using enemy resources, if it has to) to ensure Mormon heteropatriarchy keeps sailing.
Speaking of eventualities, I’m equally certain that Evergreen, North Star and Exodus are headed for history’s dustbin.
Plenty of your words stay right on the page, and we can’t avoid seeing them, like these:
And then Alan goes and conjures a woman whose sole trait is to be a heterosexist oppressor of a gay man who decides to marry her, which then suggest, “Look, a straight woman is oppressing a gay man who decides to marry her.” Its an unrealistic, simplistic tautology that serves to ensure that the heterosexism is what harms the gay person instead of seriously examining how misogyny in Mormonism plays out for both.
Wow, that was easy!
Alan’s arguments are so full of holes and blaming and anger that it’s no wonder that someone thought, way up in 7, that he was just some nasty homophobe.
Eventually you can tell that all that really matters to him is that he prove that gay people win the oppression olympics.
Wow, that’s funny. Because eventually almost all MOMs fail. I have no doubt that eventually people who’ve been in failed MOMs will be able to point to enough failed ones that Alan and Exodus won’t have a leg to stand on.
Not that it will make much difference, since they already don’t have legs to stand on, but still keep saying, like the knight in Holy Grail, “come back here and I’ll bite you to death.”
All that really matters to him is that he prove that gay people win the oppression olympics.
You can tell that because of remarks like this in 28:
It’s perfectly OK to talk about how women suffer under male rule, as long as we never forget: gay people win the oppression olympics. And Alan is gay, so he’s more oppressed than just about everybody else here. That’s what he really wants us to know. Poor, poor Alan.
Chino, I seem to remember you being certain that the Church itself is headed for history’s dustbin. I guess I’m not quite as optimistic.
Chris@34 (whose tone and vocabulary sound curiously like Holly’s):
Around these parts, when I talk for what’s seen as too long about other groups being oppressed, I’m told to prove my credentials/connection. And now, when I talk about gay people being oppressed for what’s seen as too long, I’m told that’s all I care about. Seems like a double-edged sword to me.
Heterosexism does harm gay people. That fact that there’s also misogyny is an addition, not a subtraction.
What I can’t figure out is your enthusiasm for an eventual vindication of those three harmful orgs you mentioned. Why would you get any satisfaction from any of them proving anyone wrong? What you’re bringing here just seems weird and gratuitously cruel.
It’s not so much enthusiasm as it is realism. It sure would make the politics easy if the failure rate of MoMs was 100%, and if those that are successful were 100% unhappy, but it’s not and they’re not. So what I would like to see is an intra-Mormon politics of gay marriage in Mormonism (in which I consider someone like CLP to be at the center) be based on the fact that gay relationships are not sinful and are inherently good, instead of the current mantra that “mixed-orientation marriages are doomed to fail.”
In the grand scheme of things, if the objective is to promote recognition that gay relationships are not sinful but rather inherently good (a point on which I think all of us here are already in agreement), how important is this worry of yours that somebody, somewhere is taking an overly dim view of MoMs?
My view of Evergreen, North Star and Exodus is that they’re delivery systems for bad advice that’s been tailored to protect the institutions they serve, not the individuals they’re counseling.
I’d be glad to be reminded (in case I’ve missed it) exactly where “mixed-orientation marriages are doomed to fail” has been treated like a mantra in this discussion. As far as I can tell, we’re all mostly and simply concerned that we avoid pressuring anyone into or out of a relationship based on faulty premises.
Maybe one of the reasons your contribution rankles is that you seem to be awfully worried about culpability when the reality is that we’re all already implicated in various ways depending on our own stories, but — gay, straight, bi or whatever — if our intention was to deflect our own responsibility/accountability, we wouldn’t be here seeking to hash this stuff out.
Speaking of Bob Marley…
re: @37 & @38: I agree 100% with what Chino wrote @38.
For the record, I am a passionate supporter of marriage equality because I believe that GLBT folks and their families deserve the same recognition and the same rights and protections that my family enjoys.
Off the top of my head here are a couple of posts where I’ve written about this:
Just write it down and Temple Marriage, Civil Marriage, and my marriage.
I would not have said anything at all about mixed-orientation marriage on this thread or on that other unfortunate thread if Alan didn’t keep bringing it up.
I’m mostly frustrated by the lack of cognizance on Alan’s part regarding certain obvious asymmetries when it comes to the “politics” of all this. Carol Lynn and Emily are both celebrities in this fascinating mo/exmo universe of ours, but they’re also individuals, with their own POVs, and certainly not institutions. Anyone who’s willing to show up here and dialog deserves better than to be treated as if they’d been issued a summons to a deposition.
CLP is not a “somebody, somewhere.” With celebrity it’s often hard to tell where the person ends and the institution begins. The sway from any critique I make of CLP on this post-Mormon blog is bound to be asymmetrical with the sway she holds in the Mormon world on the issues in question. I guess I could just email her directly, since I do find it very harmful indeed for a Mormon celebrity to vocalize a dim outlook on MoMs while simultaneously be unwilling to say gay relationships aren’t sinful. Instead of creating more space for gays in Mormonism, such a stance creates less space. To be honest, I would actually prefer a group like North Star that works with what they think they have over a politics that takes away what’s there and offers no alternatives. Now, CLP has supported gay marriage publicly, but she doesn’t seem willing to take a stand on the sin matter, which…well, it’s not like the Church is really going to start supporting “sin.” It’s depends on the situation, though I think this is one of them: borderline politics can be more harmful than the extremes. The “voice of reason” becomes the ultimate protector of the status quo.
Yeah, I guess you could just email her directly, or here’s a novel idea: you could work up a piece describing your objections to Carol Lynn and post it under your name. Then, when you do, that’ll be my cue to use your post to talk about what Emily’s got going on. Turnabout is fair play, right?
(whose tone and vocabulary sound curiously like Hollys)
Oh, good grief, Alan. I see how your logic works. If something appears on the blog Emily Pearson runs, she wrote it. If someone dares to discuss misogyny and doesnt mind revealing that they find you ridiculous, it has to be me, because there cant possibly be two such people in the English speaking world. But Ive got better things to do these days than pay attention to your ranting nonsense. Having read the OP when it showed up in my reader Sunday or Monday or whenever it was and then left it at that, I wouldnt even have known about the conversation if someone hadnt emailed to tell me you were at it again.
Since Im here now, though, Ill add that I am VERY impressed at how hard you work to offend every single woman at MSP. Every last one. Doesnt matter what the topic is–if it gives you a chance to insult and belittle a woman who writes or comments with any frequency or has even been invited to do a guest post here, you take it. You didnt have to jack this thread and make it all about how much Emily Pearson and her mother offend YOU, but you just couldnt resist going wildly off topic. I have reservations about much of what CLP does, but I dont think a post about the misrepresentation of her daughters Mormonism is the place to raise them. You could have just kept your nastiness to yourself, but no. If theres something ever so distantly connected to YOU, you have to remind everyone just how much it is about YOU. And you have to insult a woman while you do it.
Talk about raising questions about the dynamic between mother and child.
It never goes well for you when you pick these fights here. You get pissy and petulant and start complaining about being misunderstood. Are you such a glutton for punishment and is your impulse control so poor that you cant stop yourself from pissing in everyones cornflakes, including your own?
I wonder if she’ll come back here after seeing the first mention of her name sparks a huge (and not entirely constructive) discussion of her famous mom and mixed-orientation-marriage — as though those were the only noteworthy things about her.
Today one of her metaphors kind of spontaneously came to mind again — the one about how she was looking for the familiar trees but all she could see was the ocean, and how could you be sad to see the ocean? But clearly she was sad, or at least it was difficult.
I loved this because it really helped me understand and empathize with an experience that was so totally different from my experience. It was fascinating how much the church was a source of emotional support and comfort to her, despite the fact that it was the cause of so many of her problems.
For me, I sincerely believed in the church and the LDS gospel, and I cared about my Mormon identity and heritage. But the church and gospel were really never a source of comfort to me. So when it hit me that it isn’t true — that that’s the one explanation that makes it all make sense — I really didn’t feel a sense of loss. It was more like some bitter medicine that I’d always known was good for me, and then one day learning that it’s actually not good for me at all. It’s good news.
But I know from my time on in the exmo Internet that lots of people feel this profound sense of loss when they stop believing, and I love to try to understand all of these different types of experiences.
@48
I like this a lot, Chanson. I also felt that the church was a bitter medicine, but I invested so much in trying to find out why so many found it not just easy to swallow but delicious, and in having my taste buds examined, and going without things I did find delicious. And then when I realized this nasty medicine was actually very bad for me, I did experience a lot of loss–but much of it was lost possibility and opportunity and time. I very much regretted wasted years and effort and suffering. And loss doesn’t have to be about something you continue to value later, or even enjoy at the time. If you’ve built a ritual around taking your nasty, nasty medicine every night, and suddenly you give up that ritual, it can be a tremendous loss–even as you sense that you’ll someday find something much, much better to put in its place. But until you do, you can be stuck with grief and confusion and emptiness.
True, and I think that’s also one of the points Emily Pearson was describing with her metaphor about looking for the familiar trees when all she could see was the ocean.
I know I’ve said this a million times, but for me, the point when I stopped believing was right at the point in my life when I was itching to blaze my own trail, and to decide which components of my childhood life I wanted to take with me and which parts I wanted to leave behind. My bitter Mormon medicine wasn’t the only familiar item that didn’t fit into my knapsack as I set off for new horizons.
The loss that you and Emily Pearson describe — it makes perfect sense once you explain it. But I wouldn’t have just intuited it on my own, which is one of the reasons I love being here in exmo-land hearing about everyone’s different experiences.
(Regret over lost possibility and opportunity is one of the themes of my story Bordeaux Mission.)
There seems an agreement that my problem is that I turned someone else’s OP into my own space, so I’ll take that, and apologize for that.
Alan @47, that’s very big of you.
I’d appreciate it if you’d also apologize to me for misrepresenting my position and then posting a wall of text to rant about the position that you invented and pinned on me. If you do so, I will apologize for my sarcastic response at the top of @22 — which I wrote in response to the scenario that you conceived and brought up. That sarcastic response to your scenario is apparently what set you off, and I’m sorry I wrote it.
I thought I had already learned that I need to never, ever, ever post a sarcastic response here (no matter how tempting!) because it compromises my ability to keep a discussion from going South — by compromising the trust I’ve tried to build (that I will remain fair).
Exodus Int’l: harbinger of what’s in store for Evergreen Int’l and North Star.
$1 million on a new building is no small change. They overextended and now are suffering the consequences. I don’t think the “there’s no gay or straight, only sexual holiness” motto is disappearing anytime soon, though. It’s too lucrative.