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I no longer go very often to the LDS church. This post partially explains why.

One: J

When I was dating the woman who would become my wife, she struggled to tell me something. It took her a while before she eventually said, “my brother J is gay.” I wasn’t bothered at all but Rebecca was scared it would scupper our relationship. After all, if her brother was gay, the idea that I — a Returned Missionary — might contemplate marrying a woman from anything less than the perfect Mormon family was in danger. It seems silly now but that’s what she thought. I’m not sure why it didn’t bother me. I am no font of tolerance and charity . . . I just didn’t care. Plenty of other Mormons don’t either but she had this idea from somewhere, I suppose. Perhaps it was from some of the people in our branch whose virulent homophobia was on display in Sunday school? And where did that come from? At the time, I would have absolved the church. Bigots are everywhere, I thought. It’s not the church’s fault.

Two: A

When you find out you are mentioned in someone’s memoir, it can be a little unnerving (in 2001 I was, apparently, “tall and broad-shouldered with hair the colour of pumpkins”). National Geographic’s Andrew Evans details, among other things, his life as a Mormon gay man in The Black Penguin. We knew Drew in Oxford and I was his home teacher when he came out.

Drew was the music leader in Primary and Rebecca was in the Primary presidency. She wanted him to continue. So, initially, did the bishop, who knew Drew was gay. Then something changed. The bishop spoke to the stake president who spoke to the area president who spoke to Salt Lake. The word came back: ask him whether he was attracted to children. When Drew told me this I was devastated for him. Where did that come from? Not the church, obviously. Everyone knew that homosexuality and paedophilia were unrelated. I had always thought this to be the error of a naive bishop. Only when I read his memoir did I find out that the concern came from the top. The area president told the bishop that Drew had to be released: “It just looks bad,” he said.

It’s difficult for me to read now that Drew didn’t quite believe my attempt to offer a hand of friendship at the time, as if I was just “a good friend assigned by the church to keep me in check.” I did not feel that way but I can understand why he believed it. The bishop had offered the same hand before withdrawing it. But it wasn’t my fault, nor was it entirely the bishop’s. As Drew remembers it, I said, “You just have to forgive us. The church isn’t ready yet.” That was 2001. I really thought things would change.

(Andrew and I will do a Q&A on the book soon.)

Three: S

S was on the same PhD programme at Johns Hopkins as me. He was a Catholic from New Jersey who, to my surprise, had been a student at BYU. He was a kind and forgiving man who always spoke warmly of Mormons . . . except when it came to that one time his bishop in Provo (he had for a while considered converting) had told him it would be better to drown himself in Utah Lake than be a gay man. When no-one in our ward would babysit for our kids when Rebecca went into hospital to have our third child, S stayed the night with them. How anyone could be so hateful to someone so kind, I could not fathom. At this point I was beginning to believe that there really was something fundamentally wrong with the church’s moral compass when it came to how we dealt with queer folk. After all, by their fruits shall they be known. S had been equally hurt by his Catholic elders but there was a difference: it was possible to find a haven from the hatred in some pockets of the American church. I celebrated Good Friday with him in his Baltimore parish, a parish that knew he was gay and in a relationship but left him alone.

Four: E

I grew up with E, a beautiful and vivacious woman. Our Mormon youth together was a golden age of LDS wholesomeness and earnest faith. After college and missions, our friendship waned, as these things do. I married Rebecca at 22. E married at 40 and for years I wondered what was taking her so long! She had many suitors and every reason as a Mormon woman to settle down. What I didn’t know was that E was gay. Last year I went to her wedding in London. It was a joyous event and I don’t think I have ever seen a couple more in love. This was something lovely and of good report and not to be despised. And yet on November 5th, 2015, the church said it was, that she needed to be excommunicated and any children she might have be excluded from fellowship. I just could not believe that, nor could I lend my full support to an organisation that would do that. Reading Drew’s story I realise now how I could not completely absolve myself of responsibility for a church who would see a gay man as a potential child molester, say hateful things to a friend, induce such worry in my wife, and call good evil. Did I not support the church financially? Did I not give the church hours of my time? Did I ever speak out in public about this? I was the church.

And so anyway, here was my sad conclusion, made with absolutely no satisfaction at all: it was not random bigotry but a systemic moral failure all along. Am I wrong?

Please note that these are my thoughts only, not those of BCC, and should not be used to dismiss all of the other good and true things to be found among the Mormon people, whom as friends and family I continue to love. My religious life — worshipping as an Anglican, practising Zen, and, yes, fellowshipping with Mormons — remains very much alive.