About Savannah's testimony

Yes, this is an interruption in the topic we have been covering, though it can relate.

If you don't know, there is a video making the rounds of a 12 year old girl bearing her testimony and it includes that she is gay, and believes that God made her that way and it wasn't a mistake, and that He would not want her to have to live her life alone or with someone she is not attracted too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_0nhyP6dU4

That would have generated some attention on its own, but at one point a member of the stake presidency shut off her mike, asked her to sit down, and then had the bishop (I think) bear his testimony. Many people are calling this cowardice on the presidency member's part, which is fair. For what it's worth, hearing what the bishop said, I think he said better things than the presidency member would have, because he did affirm Savannah's worth and faith. I do not think they should have turned off the microphone, and really, after a lifetime in the church, considering some of the things that they let people say, yeah, they just should have let her finish.

This post isn't really so much about Savannah though as about being a believing Mormon who is not a homophobe, and the very tricky balancing act that can be.

Bigotry is getting worse, and finding it in your church is sickening. I know for some people the easy answer is to leave the church, or make a big stink until it fully embraces all sexual identities, neither of which I have chosen to do. That isn't without thought, and I hope that my thoughts may be helpful to some people who are suffering. Maybe Pride is as good a time as any to do that.

For long-time readers, I have written about homosexuality before and following prophets and knowing that prophets are not perfect and seeing how we get infected by the world. I have seen historically cases where things that were socially normal were assumed to be true, and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

I do not pretend to have anything to say about what the doctrine should be. Frankly, the more I learn about sexuality and gender, the more I realize how little we understand (something else I have written about). I do not fit anywhere into LGBTQIA, and I am confident that it is not my place to tell anyone who does how to live their lives. I have my own things to figure out.

I do know that while the church could be better in some ways, what is stated on the church web site is friendlier to gays that most members. A good first step for a lot of us could be catching up with that.

I also see a huge issue in the response to the uncertainty being to silence. It feels bad being hateful, but you can't believe they can be right, so you would rather just never hear about it. This is the kind of attitude that gets microphones shut off, but it is also an attitude that breaks and hardens hearts. That attitude means that if there are straight members with gay family members whose hearts ache when they hear about things like this, that we would rather not hear about their pain and share that burden. Remember Mosiah 18:9? It's an attitude that lets you resent gay teenagers and wish you didn't have to hear from them, even though they need love and support and they have a high suicide rate.

There is no reason to believe that ignoring an issue will make it better. Yes, sometimes answers may be unsatisfactory: I am not sure how all of this will work out, but I know that these people are valuable and I love them - that can get you through more than you think. Besides, if there is one thing I have learned with my studying of racism, it's that initial discomfort is necessary - you cannot progress without facing it.

I do not doubt there are frustrations with our leadership. I get that. Often in conferences I will feel like they are so close to coming right out and saying the way we as members need to change, but it feels like they fall short, without driving it home. (And other times I get mad and turn off the TV; I am not claiming no room for improvement.)

Here's the thing. I can picture them coming right out and saying that the bigotry is wrong, or that some conservative right-wing policy is wrong, or maybe even that Trump is wrong, at which point I envision a mass exodus from the church. That may be inevitable.

If they continue to speak softly for a while in the hopes that more people will hear the hints, and soften and be ready, I can't fault that. There are ways in which the soft hints are more easily heard than the blunt statements, even while they are also more easily ignored.

I don't know how things are going to play out, but when I look at the difficulties involved I can feel a lot of compassion for a lot of different people, and I am going to stick with that. As things currently are, I do not want to leave the church because I do not want only the people who are not bothered by bigotry to be the sole members and representatives of the church. I do worry about it. I don't know a way not to worry about it, except that as I choose love I am more likely to feel peace.

I also cannot rule out that there may be a time when I will need to conscientiously object - where I might choose to leave or I might do something within that gets me excommunicated. I think that's less likely, but it is a possibility.

I will do what I can live with, and I will make those choices by continuing to pray, continuing to read the scriptures and apply them, continuing to try.

That is all I know how to do.