Rebekah Perkins Crawford has a PhD in Communication Studies from Ohio University. Her research centers on the ways religious communities communicate about mental health, sexuality, and sexual violence. Her favorite calling at church is the primary chorister and she loves reading, gardening, and exercising in her spare time.
My friend who sings with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recently told me about his experience performing with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus on their recent tour in June. A considerate, thoughtful man, he said, “It was great to share the stage with them, to build bridges between our two communities and to show the world that there doesn’t have to be animosity between the Latter-day Saints and LGTBQ folks.”
It wasn’t until later that evening, after our conversation, that I figured out what it was about his statement that had unsettled me. It bothered me that his words assumed that the Latter-day Saint and LGBTQ communities were two separate entities, that “they” were gay while “we” were Mormon.
Statements like these are hurtful because they subconsciously erase or diminish the existence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer/questioning or transgender members of our religious community. What’s more, these kinds of statements—accidental and well-meaning though they be– reflect a problematic way of thinking in which we subconsciously assume that someone must choose to be either Mormon or gay. Even though the Church’s official website, mormonandgay.org argues otherwise, my dissertation research with LDS religious leaders and professional mental healthcare providers reveals a pattern of communication and interaction that constrains some Latter-day Saints’ opportunity to simultaneously express their sexual and religious identities.
In my interviews I noticed, and it concerned me, that much of our communication to or about LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints constructs an understanding of “them” as separate or excluded from the rest of “us.” This type of communication is problematic because it gets translated into action, creating behaviors and attitudes that are, in essence, self-fulfilling prophesies. Indeed, every time we talk about LGTBQ+ folks as separate from Latter-day Saints, every time we hold them to standards that have significant long term physical, mental and emotional effects not generally shared by others and every time we reject and isolate them for expressing their sexual desire, we cut them out of our religious communities, performing an amputation that damages all members.
Discursively Constructing the “Other”
My singing friend is not the only one to fall into an “us versus them” mindset. One bishop I interviewed said, “The LGBTQ+ didn’t like us before, they still don’t like us now.” I didn’t know enough at the time to ask him, “But what about the LGTBQ+ folks who are among us?” but I do wonder now what it must be like to be caught in the middle of this conflict. Another bishop admitted that there were attitudes in his student ward that got in the way of ward members accepting and loving their LGTBQ+ brothers and sisters. He said, “I think that there are generic, bigger attitudes that exist within the community and among their generation that they hold onto” that interfere with including LGBTQ+ members.
A third bishop admitted to feeling like he was left without explanations or ideas for members who come asking for help with same-sex attraction. As he put it, “Sometimes there are some really, really difficult . . . where sometimes I sit back and scratch my head and go, ‘Man, I don’t even . . . I don’t know how, what I can do to help this person.’ Like, for example, same-sex attraction is a big one. Sometimes you look at them and I get a sense . . . like there’s not a lot you can say. [chuckle] Do you know what I mean? Those are hard issues to deal with as far as . . . that’s hard.” This bishop seemed to be troubled about the set of ideas he had to work from because they did not provide adequate solutions for LGTBQ+ Latter-day Saints. He and other bishops expressed a vivid understanding of the divide between gay and straight members, an “us versus them” feeling that got in the way of accepting and connecting with some Latter-day Saints.
A Celibate Life
Perhaps the divide that is constructed between gay and straight Latter-day Saints is the most pronounced when it comes to celibacy expectations. While we expect straight members to remain celibate until they are married, we expect our LGTBQ+ members to give up the hope of ever having a sexually intimate partner or a family of their own. Though the church argues that the law of chastity applies [equally] to all of God’s children it in fact does not. When we define marriage as a relationship that is only sanctioned between one man and one woman, and when we allow sex only within marriage, we create a life of perpetual celibacy for LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints.
One faithful psychologist who works with gay Latter-day Saints described the lived realities that come with trying to remain celibate for an entire lifespan. He told me about one gay man that “had been struggling for a long time, really severe depression, difficulty in school, really disconnected from many folks, and just really worried.” When this gay man came out to his bishop the psychologist said that “the bishop handled it great. And really sat with the kid, worked with him.” He described the bishop’s words: “’Hey, this is hard, there are going to be some slip-ups if you’re trying to live a celibate life and repress every sexual impulse you’ve ever had.’” To this comment the psychologist added his own perspective, acknowledging that remaining celibate for your whole life is “really hard . . . and some might say impossible.”
We place different expectations on LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints than we do on other members of the church, allowing married straight members to have sexual relationships and the families they create but expecting gay members to live their whole lives as celibate individuals. These different expectations are a form of exclusion because they make it much harder to be a faithful Latter-day Saints for some folks than for others. In effect, having a double standard in the way we implement the law of chastity makes the cost of church membership much higher for those who are not in the majority. This cost becomes burdensome to the health of many LGTBQ+ Latter-day Saints who love the church, love their testimonies, wards, and families, and who don’t want to leave.
The (Health) Problems with Ostracization
People who study what I study are concerned with how we talk about and to each other because research in this field demonstrates how communication accumulates. Our words and actions add up to form our understandings of who we are both as individuals and as a culture. I am firmly convinced that when we conceive of and talk about a subgroup as “other” or separate from “the rest of us,” actions follow that create material consequences. Research done by The Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University proves this point. When families and home communities behave in highly rejecting ways towards young people who identify as gay or who feel same-sex attraction, those youth are eight times more likely to commit suicide, experience substance abuse issues, or engage in risky sexual behaviors. (Go here for their free pamphlet that explains research-based best practice for suicide prevention.)
Unfortunately, my research has corroborated the problems that come from communicating in ways that separate LGTBQ+ members from the rest of the Church. One psychologist shared a story with me that put a haunting face on the statistics explored by the Family Acceptance Project. He told me about one young gay Mormon man who was so thoroughly rejected from his family, community, and university because of his sexuality that he felt like he had nothing left to live for.
As the psychologist put it, once the young man confessed his sexuality to his bishop the “bishop was immediately telling Honor Code . . . They do a little bit of investigation . . . They look at Facebook and Snapchat . . . So, it gets really, really ugly, kinda quick, and he ended up being dismissed [from school]. Left the church, really suicidal, really isolated, family kinda distanced themselves from him . . . I mean it was kind of the worst-case scenario.”
We all can agree that we don’t want any more of these “worst-case scenarios” to happen to our children, siblings, cousins, or friends. These brothers and sisters are too precious to sacrifice as cannon fodder in the culture wars. When we enact an “us versus them” mentality we may have no idea who we are accidentally cutting out or what our communication means for their identity and mental and physical health. Even though LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints are conspicuously absent from many official venues, we can each work to include them in our local religious communities in thought, word, and actions. The first step to inclusion, healing, and prevention is acknowledging that the LDS and the LGTBQ+ communities overlap in the bodies of some of our most beloved members.
*Photo by Jordan McDonald on Unsplash