Soulforce

So I went to uber-gay day this week. It's been requested that I write about it. I'm not exactly as experienced as some at the sociopolitical posts, so this might end up taking a different tone than my requesters are expecting.

The basic scoop is that this group called Soulforce came to BYU this week as part of their tour to "end religious oppression" of GLBT's (which isn't a sandwich, but just an acronym for all of the different flavors of gay). I haven't seen any of the things they've done on campus this week (mostly because it's a rare occasion when I actually get up to school), but Loyd and I did go to the rally that they had on Monday at Kiwanis park.

When we got there the first thing that we saw was some girl in a suit playing guitar and singing poorly while another girl backed her up on the bongos. My first impression was that it would just be a party where everyone lounged around and played hacky-sack while some almost-band played hippie music (see Bio-dome for details). I was mistaken, thankfully, because then another girl got up and told about why Soulforce had come to BYU. She said that their main purpose was to open a dialog between students and the administration about the issue of homosexuality, so that it wouldn't keep being a closet-issue.

I'm too lazy to write all of the details about what everyone said (and if you're anything like me, then you're probably too lazy to read it, anyway). Most of all I was impressed with how courteous everyone was regarding BYU and the LDS Church, despite their obvious issues with the policies. The last guy that spoke was a current student at BYU, and what he said was significant to me. I can't remember all of the details and I won't try because I wouldn't do it justice, but he just told of his life being mormon and still feeling an attraction to men. I was impressed with how sincere he was as he told about dealing with his feelings and the attitudes of various family and church members while still striving to be true to his faith. Maybe he'll post his talk on the Internet and everyone can read it, but probably you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a moving talk.

So, the truth is that I have a lot of thoughts on this issue and how it affects and is affected by my religion. Most of my thoughts I'm not really sure about, and I'm not going to air them out here. Instead, here are a few things that the rally and subsequent conversations about it have made me think about:

1. I think a person should be free to live how they feel is right, and just because someone else feels that they aren't living right doesn't give them a right to force the first person to live differently. I've always thought, though, that a person still needs to make a decision about how they choose to live their life. If a person believes that Mormonism (or Christianity or anything else) is right, then they have the privilege of living according to those ideals, and if they believe that it is right for them to follow homosexual feelings, then they can live according to that ideal, but if the two conflict then they need to choose what to believe and how to live. Hearing the people at the rally made me question whether it's as clear-cut as that: Just because a person has homosexual feelings and doesn't feel it's right to suppress or change them, doesn't mean that they don't believe in Christ or Joseph Smith or the restored gospel, so it's not that simple to decide whether they'll be lonely and Mormon or happy and exiled from their faith.
2. This one isn't even just about homosexuality and religion, but that's just one issue in a larger set of things that I think and worry about. Recently I've thought about a lot of things that I don't know how to reconcile with my beliefs about my religion, and it stresses me out. A lot of people tell me not to worry about the things that I do, saying things like "it's not essential for your salvation," or that since I don't affect policy that it's not my place to figure it out. I firmly believe that all truths cooperate and agree with each other. I think it's good to figure out how different truths fit together, but some conversations that I've had this week made me realize that I don't need to stress myself out about it. Stefani told me the other day, "Don't let what bothers you consume you." I think that's wise advice. I might not be sure about some things, and I can keep trying to figure them out, but in the meantime I don't need to let myself be confused or stressed about those things that I already know are true.
3. There is one thing that I can figure out and that I think all of us can, and it's definitely within our realm of stewardship, because the only policy that it affects is our own, individual, behavior. This been a non-issue to me, because it's something that I think everyone should already know and understand, but I might be wrong about that. Maybe this is the only real important issue, because this is the part that people don't pick up on and that ultimately ends up hurting others. The issue is, of course, that we can still love and have compassion on people independent of their sexual preference, the things that they believe in, and/or how they live their lives. I think that if members of the Church were more consistently loving and understanding of individuals that have homosexual feelings, then there wouldn't even need to be a rally or a protest or anything of the like, because the mormons and BYU students that deal with same-sex attraction would still feel loved and accepted regardless of any doctrinal issues that they dealt with.
   

I'm not sure if any of that made sense to anyone but me, so I've probably just created a long, boring post that Ronnie will criticize me for later. Oh, well, he's gay anyway.