Kristin Chenoweth Ditches LGBTQ People

On Moral Complicity, Morality, and Evil

Tony and Emmy Award-winning Broadway star and self-described LGBTQ ally Kristin Chenoweth will perform in a paid engagement with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in December. She’s no LGBTQ ally.

I write frequently on the topic of moral complicity.

I often note in my writing that one of the main reasons we LGBTQ people still face significant oppression and persecution is that good and decent people won’t take moral stands to oppose bigotry. Too many people are too willing to look the other way when bigotry doesn’t hurt them directly.

People who don’t personally have anything against us support and contribute money to organizations like the Catholic and LDS (Mormon)churches — despite the fact that their money is used to hurt us. They continue to support and participate despite the fact that the organizations preach and promote doctrines that stigmatize and shame us.

They are morally complicit in our persecution whether or not they directly participate in it.

Do you know who Kristin Chenoweth is?

She’s a big Broadway star with a belting voice, huge stage presence, and until recently, a huge reputation for being a staunch ally to LGBTQ people. She’s been honored by notable LGBTQ organizations like GLAAD and The Trevor Project. She credits her moral stance to her best friend who committed suicide in college after being bullied for being gay.

What’s striking is that the Church’s persecution is getting worse rather than better. LGBTQ Mormons feel more stigmatized, more shamed, and more excluded from community life now than they did even 4 or 5 years ago.

LGBTQ people and organizations all over the United States have been shocked to learn that Chenowith will soon star as a featured performer and narrator at this year’s annual Christmas concert series by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

LGBTQ advocate and former Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger is spearheading an initiative urging Chenowith to cancel her appearance. He’s pleading with her to understand that the LDS church is using her as a smokescreen to legitimize their bullying behavior towards LGBTQ people. Here are Karger’s own words from an opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune. —

Although Chenoweth’s paid performance with the Tabernacle Choir was unexpected, the invitation by the church was not. The church often uses smokescreens to appear accepting of LGBTQ people, while at the same time increasing its cruelty toward LGBTQ Mormons by its words and policies that cause immeasurable harm, especially to vulnerable LGBTQ youth. Her mere presence with the Tabernacle Choir gives her giant stamp of approval to the church’s homophobic policies of bigotry, hate and shaming. Surely, the LGBTQ community can expect better from its allies.

Krager is referring to the LDS Church’s infamous November Policy of 2015, which orders the excommunication not only of same-sex couples but their children. Countless families have been ripped apart as the LDS Church ratchets up its persecution and shaming of innocent people. The policy caused a huge spike in already sky-high rates of suicide attempts among teen LGBTQ Mormons.

According to Lee Hale of KUER Radio in Salt Lake City, a recent study at the University of Georgia shows that more than 70 percent of LGBTQ Mormons surveyed met criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the teachings and sermons they heard at church.

Kimberly Anderson, a transgender woman who left the LDS Church, told Hale, “It’s very clear. We are inflicting trauma on our queer youth.”

What’s striking is that the Church’s persecution is getting worse rather than better. LGBTQ Mormons feel more stigmatized, more shamed, and more excluded from community life now than they did even 4 or 5 years ago.

Kristin Chenoweth’s support of the Church shocks the conscience —

Given her own testimony of being moved by her gay friend’s suicide, it’s almost impossible to imagine how she can cooperate with an institution that’s directly responsible for high and increasing rates of teen suicide.

In refusing to back out of the performances, Chenoweth told the Salt Lake Tribune that singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is something she dreamed about growing up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

She went on to say, “I do think music is a healer and brings people together who might not normally see eye to eye,” and that she hopes “to show nothing but love” in her Salt Lake City performances.

That’s meaning-free, amorphous nonsense.

By lending her imprimatur to the LDS Church, by lending her fame and celebrity to their annual performances, Chenoweth is strengthening their hand. She’s demonstrating that it’s OK for good, decent people to associate with an institution that is causing grievous harm to innocent LGBTQ people.

She’s telling the nation that LGBTQ youth suicide doesn’t matter.

She’s telling all of us that moral complicity is perfectly fine so long as we’re fulfilling a childhood dream. She’s telling us that a meaningless phrase like “music is a healer” is enough to justify participation in evil.

Make no mistake —

What Chenoweth is doing by supporting the LDS Church is actively, objectively evil. She’s increasing human suffering and decreasing human happiness. She’s making bigots stronger while LGBTQ families and children suffer.

I write often about moral complicity. Chenoweth is a jaw-dropping example of a privileged straight woman who makes plenty of nice noises about supporting LGBTQ people, but who (when push comes to shove) really doesn’t care at all.

She can’t be inconvenienced for us.

She won’t be part of the solution for us.

She won’t say no to bigotry.

Sadly, she represents far too many self-described allies. It’s a lot easier to talk about supporting LGBTQ rights than standing up and making sacrifices to do it. Evil institutions like the LDS Church and the Roman Catholic Church continue to get away with causing great suffering because our so-called allies refuse to make them pay consequences for their hateful policies.

I despair sometimes. I just don’t understand.

Will you help us, please? Here’s a tweet from Fred Karger calling on Chenoweth to withdraw from the concerts, tagging her and the Tabernacle Choir.

Will you please like and retweet? And will you add a comment demanding that Chenoweth stop supporting the LDS Church until they agree to stop hurting LGBTQ people?

Haven’t enough of our youth died of suicide already?