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Nicole is a mother, feminist, and activist living in the Salt Lake Valley with her partner Kerstin and blended family of seven. She credits the women in her life for shaping her values and her hope for a world filled with compassion, authenticity, and uncompromising love.

It’s so hard to find any words to express my feelings about the news about the changed policy.

I type and delete and type and delete.

I couldn’t find the right words because I couldn’t find words that were true enough to myself, but that I thought would be safe from hurting or offending my family who are still members. I love my family very much and they have been so great with Kerstin and me. Since they’ve been so careful not to hurt us, I really, really don’t want to hurt them.

I think I’d just like to describe my dream world.

I wish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had never taught that homosexuality was wrong. The teaching does deep damage to families. We all know what it feels like to watch that scene in a movie or TV show where a teen, terrified, comes out to their parents, and a parent takes it badly.

Imagine living it — from either side. That doesn’t need to happen. We aren’t born rejecting the idea of a woman loving a woman, or a man loving a man. We learn it, we have learned it from laws, traditions and religions.

And it breaks families apart again and again and again.

But since the Church did teach it, I wish it had never decided to teach that not only are the “acts” (the sexual side) wrong, but also being a family as a gay couple is wrong. Marriage, commitment, raising children — all these things that as Mormons we were taught to see the immense good in, The Policy taught us even those are wrong, if you are gay.

This was and is so deeply hurtful on a daily basis to me. My family is wrong. The relationship that has saved my life is wrong. The way we are raising our kids to love love, to love whom they wish to love, and to love everyone regardless of whom they love.

This policy said love has limits. In my mind and in our home, love doesn’t have limits.

But since the Church did teach that and does still teach that, even if it’s not classified as “apostasy” anymore, I at least wish the Church would apologize. I wish it would acknowledge that this is condemning love and families, and why that is wrong. I wish the Church would reinvest in love of everyone, without prescribing what a “good” love looks like. I wish the Church would acknowledge that the way the religion taught us wasn’t healthy.

I wish the Church would apologize to the people who lost family and friends who were LGBTQ to suicide, addictions, and other fatal or lifelong harm from coping with rejection.

I wish the Church would apologize to people who gave everything they could to believe until they couldn’t cope with the dissonance anymore. Who left, betrayed, because even though they were told the Church loves its gay members, this certainly didn’t feel like the way to love someone.

I wish the Church would apologize to active believers, who may not have felt that this was love either, but became torn between a Church they loved and people they loved.

But, since church leaders haven’t and probably won’t apologize, I wish they would at least stop teaching it and allow LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ members alike to take homosexuality OUT of their religious beliefs, and to believe in unconditional love. To believe that love and families, and love of family members, is good no matter what it looks like — in THIS life, regardless of beliefs on the afterlife.

I wish the Church would let good be good, and let love be love.

I know my family is not wrong. I know my love is not wrong. I know this is the most right I have ever felt.

I hope yesterday’s announcement is a step toward my dream, toward a love-focused world. These teachings need to change. The hurt needs to stop, and the damage needs to be repaired.

And to the believers, who stuck with me and my family anyway, and who showed and show us pure love, thank you. You’ve helped this change push forward.

And to Kerstin, all my love. ❤️

*Photo by Kazden Cattapan on Unsplash