Elder Bednar recently declared that “There are no homosexual members of the Church,” and the discussions about his remarks have reflected general confusion about his intent. Some Mormons feel like the statement was exclusionary and divisive, while other Mormons feel the intent of the statement was to be inclusive and unifying.

After all, the statement seemed to say, I see you as a Child of God, not as your sexual orientation. That’s a good thing, right?

Perhaps the following personal story may illustrate why Elder Bednar’s remarks could be interpreted as exclusionary:

My family was living overseas, and the best English-speaking schools available were those set up by Christian denomination missionaries in the 1800’s – a pretty common situation for English-speaking schools overseas. While you did not have to be Christian to attend the school (there were some Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists there as well), the school had classes and clubs oriented toward trinitarian Christianity, school time set apart for the weekly devotional assembly (much how BYU does), and they also accommodated Bible study, service projects, and music and drama programs depicting biblical themes as part of the curriculum.

The education offered was excellent, and we sent our kids to the school.

Several other Mormon families were in our same position, and the mothers in those families had degrees in child development, education, and speech pathology. They wanted to get hired for part-time jobs by the kids’ schools to make extra income or reduce tuition fees in what was a very expensive country. A few of these families were military, so tuition rates were nearly prohibitive, but the American school on the army base was not, in their view, an option, due to behavioral and drug problems.

My friends applied for various positions at the school. They quickly discovered that if you were Methodist, Evangelical, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Baptist, etc, you could be hired on staff. If you were Mormon, however, you could not. Why? Because these were Christian schools, and Mormons are not Christians.

Now, of course, Mormons are Christians, but the Christian schools and denominations in them wanted to own the term “Christian” on their terms, and tried to erase Mormonism’s identity as a Christian religion. They said that since Mormons were not Christians, their clientele – predominantly Christian parents – would not send their kids to be educated by an non-Christian teacher. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Mormons could attend the school, but not teach there. So my friends couldn’t get hired by the school.

My friends went in to the headmasters to appeal. They explained how they took the sacrament every Sunday, how they prayed in the name of Jesus Christ, how they celebrated the atonement and Easter and Christmas, trying to build on those things that we all held in common.

Finally, one of my friends, who was highly respected by her kids’ school, was approached and told that she could be hired as long as she didn’t attend a Mormon church. They didn’t even require that she replace her Sunday worship by going to a church they considered “Christian”. They felt this was very magnanimous.

She was put in the position of choosing between being employed at the school or rejecting her faith. In their graciousness, they told her that she could still be Mormon, she just couldn’t act like one by attending Church, having a book of Mormon on campus, wearing any Mormon or BYU paraphernalia, talking about her Mormonism in any way, etc. She had to behave like a good Christian, like all the other teachers.

Of course, as you undoubtedly understand, my friend was Mormon AND Christian, despite everyone saying otherwise. Her Mormonism was how she saw herself, how she interfaced with the world, how she made sense of her reality. She could not parse her Christianity from her Mormonism – it was a ridiculous notion. Her Christianity was her Mormonism, and Mormonism was her Christianity. No one could rob her of her Mormonism, even if she stopped attending Church, and of course, she knew that not attending church would be a complete betrayal of who she was. No one could rob her of her Christianity, even though she was Mormon, but though the school relented to see her as Christian, they rejected her Mormonism, and accepted her in spite of it. Was this inclusive or exclusive?

She did not want to hide who she was – her Mormonism was her identity, not her Sunday schedule, not her Mormon habits, not her books or CTR rings or her blue-and-white cougar gear – her Mormonism was her, it was who she was, so to reject the Mormon part of herself was to reject her whole self. She did not take the job.

Many Mormons would interpret this story as an act of steadfastness in the face of persecution, and praise her for being true to her Mormonism in the face of oppression. We tell stories like it all the time, framed as standing as witnesses of God in all things and in all places.

She told me of a school assembly later in the year where the headmaster, as a gesture of unity and in a moment of furvor, stated “We are more than our denominations, we are all Christians here…”

This statement was obviously exclusionary to the Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist families, but did this statement feel inclusive to my Mormon friend, who actually was a Christian? Did she feel embraced as a Christian? Of course not – she knew she would only be considered Christian if she betrayed her own identity as a Mormon. Did this statement acknowledge her Christianity as a Mormon? No, it set her apart from every other Christian in the room and echoed how non-Christian she was because of her Mormonism. Now, if the school had different practices, and hired Mormons as Christians, then the sentiment would have been received as inclusive. But in the context of school policy and practice, the sentiment highlighted her outsider status. If she chose to interpret the statement in the best way possible – that she was considered a Christian in that moment – she knew that at the very least it erased her Mormonism and saw her as a Christian in spite of her religion, not because of it.

We Mormons have as much right to erase a gay person’s homosexuality as a trinitarian Christian does of erasing a Mormon’s Christianity. If we are going to say there are no homosexuals in the church because we do not define anyone by their orientation, then we can’t have policies that disparately impact those with a homosexual orientation.

Once, when Elder Packer told us that we are not “Mormon” but instead that we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, did we stop thinking of ourselves as Mormons? No, the “I am a Mormon” campaign did not become the “I Am A Member Of the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints” campaign (thank goodness!!)

If Elder Bednar wants to express inclusion to homosexual Mormons, he could say something like:

“There are homosexual and heterosexual members of the Church, and we are all sons and daughters of God.”

Inclusion is not erasure. We can’t redefine someone else without hurting them and the relationship in the process. Homosexual Mormons in the Church (yes, there are many) will continue to suffer if we do anything short of seeing them who they are and loving them for who they are, instead of loving them in spite of who they are.

Once we do that, then there will be lots of Mormons (not just Children of God) in heaven.