Category: LGBTQIA

Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Three)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post, LGBTQIA, Polygamy Culture2 Comments

Note: This is a three-part series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written exclusively by Nathan Kitchen for Life Outside the Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love–Navigating the Queer Latter-day Sain Experience During an Ongoing Restoration, published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: In the clash of the queer marriages, the ghost of polygamy significantly harms LGBTQ Latter-day Saints because the Church practices both post-manifesto and pre-manifesto polygamy strategies on its LGBTQ population.

The Post-Manifesto Template

At the D. Michael Quinn Symposium at the University of Utah in 2022, Dr. Neil Young argued that the rising visibility of sexual and gender minorities in the 1950s and 60s caused religious groups, including Latter-day Saints, “to articulate and develop a theology that for most of them wasn’t there or certainly wasn’t developed.”[1] The Church’s own development leaned heavily on the prevailing prejudice and discrimination of the day—readily found in government, the medical profession, and society—to underpin its anti-queer theology. The need to consider the theology of another form of queer marriage besides polygamy wasn’t on the Church’s radar until the early 1990s when, in 1993, the Supreme Court of Hawaii cracked open the door to its possibility, ruling that denying a marriage license to same-sex couples was discrimination. Over the next decade, with the Family Proclamation in hand touting one-man/one-woman marriage, the Church chased the marriage equality fight from state to state.

Continue reading “Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Three)” →

Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Two)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post, LGBTQIA, Polygamy Culture, Uncategorized3 Comments

Note: This is a three-part blog series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written by Nathan Kitchen exclusively for Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love—Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: The 19th-century, patriarchal form of Mormon polygamy has died an Earthly death. Consequentially, its implementation in heaven was frozen in the same configuration. No one in power today seems to have the appetite to flesh out, let alone update, the theology of how polygamy is practiced in the heavens for several reasons. First, because the social and sexual ethics of 19th century polygamy are so incredibly upsetting to most 21st-century Latter-day Saint women (and men) who find its practice foreign and utterly stomach-churning.

Continue reading “Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part Two)” →

Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part One)

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Guest Post, LGBTQIA, Polygamy Culture2 Comments

Note: This is a three-part blog series that explores the unique ramifications polygamy culture has upon queer Latter-day Saints written exclusively by Nathan Kitchen for Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt. To learn more about the experiences in the queer/Latter-day Saint intersection, be sure to pick up his memoir: The Boughs of Love—Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration published by BCC Press.

GUEST POST: In the fall of 2022, I ran into Carol Lynn Pearson in the Salt Palace. She recognized me and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. We were both late for speaking engagements. “Walk with me so we can visit for a moment,” she invited. Carol Lynn is a fierce advocate for LGBTQ Mormons, knowing many of us by name—even those who have long passed from this life. I shared that I was intrigued by her book, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy: Haunting the Hearts and Heaven of Mormon Women and Men. “You know, Mormon polygamy haunts LGBTQ Mormons as well,” I observed. With an inquisitive smile, she replied, “I would like to know why you would conclude such a thing!” Unfortunately, our paths diverged before I could adequately finish the elevator pitch of my thesis.

Polygamy is always uncomfortably simmering just below the surface of Latter-day Saint consciousness. Occasionally, an event happens that causes it to boil over, causing this “specter in the shadows” to become visible. Polygamy’s latest jump scare appeared in a children’s storybook produced by the Church, explaining, on an elementary level, its existence for decades, God’s approval of the practice, and the reasons why the faith continued to participate in it even though it was against the law. It is important to note that no discussion on polygamy is complete without acknowledging the intriguing premise that Mormon polygamy also haunts LGBTQ Mormons. It is time for me to finish my conversation with Carol Lynn.

Continue reading “Polygamy is Queer Marriage (Part One)” →

Allyship is a Love Unworthy of Rebuke

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, Christ, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, revelation2 Comments

LAST SUNDAY, I CAUGHT another glimpse of what it might be like to sit as an LGBTQIA congregant in a chapel surrounded by people you love, while they are comforted by a sermon that depicts your greatest hope as evil. If you’re LDS, you’ve likely had a high councilor deliver a classic sermon like the one mine did last Sunday, one that used thinly veiled language to praise those who resist “the pressures of the world” which “call good, evil and evil, good” by “fully sustaining the prophet.” While this language may be used to encourage avoidance of various sins, in this instance, it was also clearly coded as a rebuke against those of us who don’t accept and promote current LDS doctrine and policy about LGBTQIA people as eternal truth, whether we be LGBTQIA ourselves or an outspoken ally. The assumption is that if we disagree with the fallible human who serves us in the priesthood office of prophet, we disagree with God. Today, I’m not going to run a convoy of reason through the gaping holes in that logic. Rather, I want to speak specifically as an ally who was subjected to a type of public rebuke.

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Dear Amy, Here’s Why This LDS Supports LGBTQIA People

On By lisatorcassodowningIn LGBTQIA, Youth16 Comments

TW: death by suicide

At the March 2023 Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dallin Oaks, read aloud an excerpt taken from a letter written by Amy, an LDS teenager. For your ease, I offer the excerpt, followed by my own, brief response to her: 

“I feel like I sometimes get inconsistent and confusing messages from the Church. In my day-to-day life, I see members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on social media act as if they aren’t part of this gospel. … I feel like I am the only young woman in my ward who sees the things I see wrong with the world. … I truly don’t understand why so many youth in our church don’t see any problem with people changing their gender every other day, dating people who are the same sex or identify as no gender. …

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To LDS Mothers on Children Leaving the Fold

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Children, Epistles to the Saints, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, Mormon Feminism, Priesthood, Youth11 Comments

I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE LDS MOTHERS who are watching young adults leave the LDS Church and are wondering if your own children will leave or if you’re doing enough to keep them in. Maybe you’re wondering what those other parents did wrong that caused their family schism. Maybe your child has already left, as all three of mine have. Maybe you’re blaming yourself. Please know you shouldn’t. 

My oldest removed his name from the records of the Church a decade ago and my other two stopped participating before the age of 20. I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on my motherly performance, to weigh what I taught my children against the reality of what the Church is. I taught my kids the good news of Jesus Christ, to love God and their neighbors, to possess a generosity of spirit. I did what you’re doing.

And then I brought them to church. There they were taught the same things I was teaching at home. But they were also taught the opposite. They were taught by example that women aren’t of the same value as men and our voices aren’t as important. They were taught God offers cishet people blessings He denies others. They were taught that love says one thing but does another. I know many of you will throw up walls against what I’ve just said. Those walls won’t make my message any less crucial to hear.

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Ending the Objectification of Exalted Women: Joseph Smith’s Antidote to Literal Offspring Theology

On By lisatorcassodowningIn General Conference, Heavenly Mother, homosexuality, Inclusion, LGBTQIA, Mormon Feminism, Polygamy Culture12 Comments

MANY LDS WOMEN WERE DISHEARTENED by the rhetoric heard during the recent Women’s Session of General Conference because they were warned against their personal interest in knowing Heavenly Mother. This post will address that, but it is also different from my usual writing because I will be analyzing and challenging the current theology of eternal procreation. Many will disagree with me, some may be offended, but I’ve decided to finally bring forward a fuller rendition of my thoughts on the hereafter, specifically concerning the exalted female body. To be blunt, LDS women like me deserve a better theology than the one we’ve been allotted. Joseph Smith offers us that.

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Do You Hear in General Conference what LGBTQIA Members Hear?

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Epistles to the Saints, homosexuality, LGBT, LGBTQIA5 Comments

GENERAL CONFERENCE IS upon us. Many LDS are preparing to hear the admonition, advice, and encouragement of the men and women called to lead the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While many believing members anticipate General Conference with great hope, some face the bi-annual conference with trepidation, bracing themselves for the painful messages that sometimes swipe at the tender souls of LGBTQIA members. Often, the talks that inspire cisgender, heterosexual (cishet) people like myself are talks that can plummet a queer person into despair and self-loathing. (“Queer” is an oft-used, commonly accepted umbrella term to replace LGBTQIA.) I may be cishet, but I’ve spent decades listening to queer people, and, while I’m in no position to speak on behalf of any LDS queer person or their community as a whole, I am in a position to talk to people like myself about the things I’ve learned along the way. I do this in the hope that other cishet members might better understand why General Conference can be so painful for queer LDS, even if they no longer attend. I also stand ready for correction by those associated with the LDS queer community.

Most cishet members balk at the idea that anything we or our Church leaders do or say is  homo- or transphobic. After all, we say, we don’t fear LGBTQIA people, and we surely don’t harbor feelings of hate for them. Interestingly, one of my gay friends has stopped using the word homophobic, opting instead to speak of heterosupremacy, or the worldview that heteronormity is and should be privileged as superior to homosexuality. Just because the “supremacy” part of “heterosupremacy” reminds us of the dark, cruel, and vicious world of the KKK’s white supremacy, we shouldn’t gauge the term an ill-fit descriptor of the LDS Church’s worldview; the modern Church can be both infinitely kinder than the KKK and unabashedly favor heteronormity, which it clearly does.   

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On Elder Holland, the BYU Speech, and Error

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, ecclesiastical abuse, Holy Ghost, Inclusion, LGBTQIA5 Comments

ON THE SAME DAY THAT BYU announced the creation of an Office of Belonging, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland took the pulpit at BYU’s annual conference for faculty and staff and delivered an address in which he takes imprudent aim at gay students, student allies, and allies on the staff and faculty. He gaslights those present who have embraced the Church’s occasionally kinder, softer rhetoric on homosexuality and inclusion, accuses them of disloyalty to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and blames them (and BYU students within the LGBTQIA and ally community) for divisions in the Church. The new Office of Belonging would do well to build moving sidewalks throughout the campus to facilitate transporting the alienated employees and students from wherever they’re found directly to it’s door. After this talk, it’s going to take some hard labor to convince queer students they belong at BYU (or in the Church for that matter) or allies that there isn’t a target on their backs.

To recap in brief, Elder Holland made homosexuals (particularly in gay marriages) out to be enemies of the Church.  He called members to figuratively bear muskets against those who don’t see gay marriage as a disruptor of the plan of salvation. He blatantly misrepresented the facts surrounding Matt Easton’s 2019 valedictorian address, accusing the graduating senior of “commandeering”  the pulpit to come out when he had received university approval for every word he said. Thick was the indirect accusation that Easton’s coming out was an attack on Church doctrine. It wasn’t a good look for an apostle.

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